TIME
by merakiwrites
Summary: [being rewritten] two unlikely souls navigating what it means to fall in love. — shadow/tikal
1. 01

**Warnings & Disclaimers**

 **Okay, I'm going through the phase where I pretty much hate the stories that I'm writing but I've come up with a story to which I** ** _actually like_** **! Can you believe that? I promise this is the** ** _last_** **story I shall publish and delete and all that stuff, so welcome to my new Shadikal story called Time! please read here because I will have** ** _some_** **announcements and important things that you must need to here in this story.**

 **i.** **This story is set in the** ** _1950s_** **, meaning that they would be 1950s slangs, dressing and no presence of iPhones and all the stuff that has been brought up in the 21** **st** **century but will be instead looking at the** ** _20_** ** _th_** ** _century_**

 **ii.** **This story is** **rated M ; ****as it would have controversial topics so this story would** **not be censored to ; ****alcohol, abuse, swearing, sex [there will be some lemons, but it would be mostly limes], drugs, violence, sexism [sorry gals, it was an issue in the 1950s] and homophobia. I will put warnings on the top of chapters when these topics will appear but I will warn people that most [if not all] chapters will** ** _not_** **be censored to swearing. I will not be adding racism to the issues because it's very hard to be racist towards** ** _animals_** **and yes, I can humanize them but I simply feel like it would ruin the concept of it being a** ** _Sonic the Hedgehog story_** **[however, not against any writer who does like writing humanized stories or be biased to any story with humanized characters of course]**

 **iii.** **There will be no OCs in this story, mainly because I've realised that they are** ** _too_** **many sonic characters in the franchise for me** ** _not to use_** **but I am not against any author and will not be biased towards any story that** ** _does_** **uses OCs. This also means that some characters would be shifted and all in order to fit the story line more.**

 **iv.** **No character is going to be perfect. Every character is going to have an issue and all issues would be important. Although, it may seem like characters may have** ** _more_** **issues than others but it's only to fit the story line more. I'm not making any character** ** _less_** **perfect than other. All character will have their imperfections BUT I can't necessarily avoid OOCness as like before, there are no OCs and most characters may not have met the main characters in the story [also the fact that it's kind of in the 20** **th** **century and all] so it may be original perspectives being made about characters' opinions on characters.**

 **v.** **Usual pairings aside from Shadikal include Sonamy, Taismo, Knuxouge and Silvaze. This would probably be the major ships while other ships would be hinted and all.**

 **vi.** **Please remember that I don't exactly live in the 20** **th** **century [none of us do really], and if I do make mistakes please review it politely and don't be snide or rude about it and may also add some things that were not** ** _technically_** **invented in the 1950s [this doesn't mean I'd go as far as to say iPhones and laptops and stuff, I'm not** ** _that_** **crazy.]**

 **vii.** **As there would be no OCs,** **all Sonic characters, locations and all that belong to SEGA/ARCHIE** **, not me. You also don't have to give me credit if I make up a place like 'Chao Café' or something like that. The only thing I truly own, is** **the plot** **. :)**

 **viii.** **I'm switching the some of the places and I will explain now so that you wouldn't get confused. Mobius is still a planet, let's say, Mobius is like planet earth. Mobotropolis and Moebius are like countries like England and America for example. And obviously, cities would be Station Square, Central City and all that. Just wanted to explain.**

 **Anyway, I'm done with my ranting! Time to enjoy the story y'all! [see what I did there ;)]**

 ***awkward cough* I know I'm not funny… don't judge me.**

 **~xxx~**

 **1 | going back to the past**

 **The black and crimson hedgehog sighed before pouring another glass of bourbon.**

He didn't know why he was drinking so much. It was his _least_ favourite type of alcohol. His favourite was vodka, even though it was one of the most bitter types of alcohol that ever existed. He liked the bitter burning sensation his throat felt every time he drank it. He was used to bitterness after all, that drink was nothing compared to the bitterness that he had experienced in his life. It was like sweet bitterness, which was weird because they were two opposite tastes, but he didn't care. Vodka was bittersweet to him, that was probably what was going to be his favourite taste in the world but annoyingly for him, bourbon was the only source of alcohol he had in his stupid office and even though he hated it, he was desperate for some alcohol. His crimson eyes glanced—more like glared—at the newspaper beside him, before drinking his bourbon hastily. He dropped the glass before looking at the newspaper glaring at the title.

 ** _Is Scourge Enterprises going to beat Crimson Industries in the best manufacturing industries in whole of Mobotropolis?_**

He glanced at Scourge, the sap green hedgehog, whose blue eyes were smiling at the camera, but Shadow knew that that smile was nothing but fake. Scourge the Hedgehog was fake himself. No one knew much about him—then again, no one knew much about Shadow himself either—but this was different. Scourge was bad news, and yet only he seemed to see it that way. The whole of Station Square seemed to think that Scourge the Hedgehog was an innocent man trying to start business but Shadow knew him, knew him _too well_. And the things he could say could ruin Scourge's whole life, but it would backfire on him too. If he says anything, he could be known as the businessman who just wanted to win and is willing to make up stuff. And also, all the bad stuff, he knew about Scourge could potentially affect him too and in the end, could risk him losing the business completely.

"Mr. Shadow?" A voice called as he raised an eyebrow before turning to Lien-Da, his secretary. He couldn't help it, but he had always found her attractive, then again, so did _everyone in the office_. She was around his age, or little older, she never really talked about her age that much but not like he cared, he didn't mind older women. She had red dreadlocks, which matched her red-fur, which he found pretty attractive. She was in her usual grey buttoned up shirt and her matching grey tight sheath skirt, which brought out her figure and black heels. Her blue eyes glanced at the bottle of bourbon before looking at the hedgehog.

"I'm guessing you're not handling the news very well." she realised as Shadow snorted before smiling sarcastically.

"Would you?" He asked as she shrugged. She never really opened up about her past, but it wasn't like he wanted to be in a relationship with her. He was done with relationships, didn't need those.

"I suppose." she shrugged. "but then again, you're letting this little game get to your head, whose to say the Scourge guy even knows what the hell is doing?"

Shadow glanced at the teal hedgehog, who had nothing but a smirk on her face. Sometimes, he had wondered why he let her be his secretary, her attractiveness? Her ability to make him realise how stupid he was being in situations like this? He wasn't sure, but either way, her little 'pep talk' was enough to make him sit up on his chair.

"Tell Dulcy to type up some new job entry qualifications and—"

"Oh, you didn't hear?" Lien-Da cut off as the hedgehog raised an eyebrow as she laughed a bit. "Dulcy quit."

Shadow's eyes widened before he let out an exasperated sigh. He hated this. Sure, his business wasn't doing to well due to the war and the depression but after the war was over, everything was improving. His business was going up, sometimes going down and it was still trying to go up. She knew that it was probably part of the reason why Scourge's business was able to catch up, but still. This wasn't what he needed.

"And you're only telling me this now?" Shadow hissed as Lien-Da rolled her eyes.

"In my defence, all you do is sit there and drink. Not large amount of work done." Breezie admitted as Shadow glared at her, afraid to admit that she did have a point.

"Anything else, you need to talk about but I was too busy _drinking_ to care?" Shadow asked sarcastically as he watched the echidna roll her eyes as she sighed.

"The boys want to meet you in the _usual bar_." She said as he sighed.

"You might as well go. You'd do more there than here." she muttered as Shadow put on his brown trench coat before walking in front of her. "Listen to me." He growled. "Talk like that and I'd leave you out on the street got it?" he hissed as she smirked.

"You don't scare me." she admitted before moving closer to him, feeling her chest against his. "And if you wanted to leave me on the street, you would have done it a _long time ago_." she whispered his ear before smirking on walking away.

 _Why is she my secretary?_

 **~xxx~**

"This is our new start!" the newly twenty-one peach echidna in the red jumper dress with white blouse underneath, her dreadlocks in a ponytail as her cobalt eyes glanced around the shops and the little boutiques. After travelling for so long, she never expected to be back _here_ , Station Square, where everything began. But something drew her to this place. Maybe it was that she missed her family, or that running away from the past wasn't always the answer.

"You sure you want it _here_ , Tikal?" the green seedrain asked her friend worriedly, her blue eyes looking at her friend with curiosity as a nice dark blue collar dress fit her figure. Tikal looked over to her friend before giving her a smile.

"Yeah Cosmo, I'm sure." Tikal reassured as Cosmo gave her friendly smile. The pink hedgehog in a red polka-dot swing dress sighed, before looking around her surroundings.

"Never pictured coming back here." She admitted as the two girls beside her let out a chuckle, all thinking the same thing.

"I can't even believe that you talked me into this." The lavender cat in the black and white polka dot Hepburn dress grumbled as the pink hedgehog's jade eyes smiled at her.

"C'mon Blaze, just admit you missed this place." Amy smiled. "Besides, this isn't going to be like the last time, it's been so long, maybe they've forgotten about it." Amy reassured as Blaze sighed. Tikal didn't show it that much, but she needed that reassurance. The girls had been through a lot, _a lot_ ever since they left Station Square. The worst was at the Casino Night Zone, which was a hotel in Central City, or the place where the girls spent the worst two months of their lives, before deciding to come back to Station Square, home.

"You do realise that coming back here means we have to face _them_?" Blaze reminded as Tikal bit her lip. She still remembered the harsh words that her father had said to her when he told her the news. How she couldn't confine in her mother because well, her mother wasn't there anymore. The only relative she had, the only love one she could turn to just bailed on her, before, she turned to her friends of course, who gladly took her in, before telling them about their own problems.

"I know. But we had to meet up with our problems at some point. Better now than ever right?" Tikal shrugged, mainly trying to reassure herself, considering that it was her idea to come back, not like she was backing out of it or anything, she was just worried that maybe her father still hated her and never wanted to see her face, considering what she had brought to the family, the shame. But there was a tiny bit of her that was still remaining for hope, that maybe he had missed her, but she honestly doubted that. The good news is that she was old enough to get her new place and didn't have to leave with her father anymore. Luckily, the girls had a large amount of money earned from the Casino Night Zone, although none of them were proud of how they earned the money, but they still had it so they could look for apartments.

"I guess, but I swear if—"

"Blaze, we promise we're not leaving you. We didn't leave each other during the Casino Night Zone era, we're defiantly _not_ going to leave you now. Okay?" Amy reassured as Blaze gave the girls a smile. Tikal smiled at Blaze, she was probably the most worried about coming back and she didn't blame her for it either. No one was too keen on looking back on their deadly past, not even Amy who even though was dashing friendly smiles, she was pretty sure that she was nervous like the rest of them.

"I'm going call for a taxi." Cosmo smiled, before hailing for a taxi. The yellow taxi stopped, before a dark orange porcupine with a pair of amber-coloured eyes slid his window down.

"What can I do for you ladies?" He asked with a cocky grin.

"We're going to Chao Garden Apartments." Cosmo answered as he nodded, showing a sign that he knew the place before the girls dropped their bags in the boot and entered the taxi. Chao Garden Apartments was one of the most luxurious apartments in Station Square, which emphasized on the large amount of money they had as they were even able to buy their own separate apartments. Even though they weren't proud of how they made the money, it didn't hurt to spend on it on something nice and luxurious, mainly to get their mind of on how they earned the money. Tikal looked out the window. A large amount had changed since she had gone, maybe because there was finally no more war or the economy had gotten better but everything seemed so much more, _lively_. Sure, Station Square was always known as a lively place but never still lively. She had never seen so many advertisements for broadways and fashion lines. She had never seen so many buildings, industries, more like _empires_ in her entire life.

She left the cab take a swift turn before arriving at Chao Garden and boy was that place huge. She was impressed by how large the building was and more surprised over the fact that it was a hotel and not a skyscraper by now. The grass in front of it was freshly mowed as in the middle was a nice decorative fountain, spurting out perfectly blue water. Tikal and the girls go out of the car, before looking at their new home.

"I can get used to this." Blaze shrugged as Tikal gave her a small nudge. It did look nice, something that the girls really needed, a nice clean start.

"Thanks!" Cosmo smiled, before opening her purse.

"No, no. On the house." The porcupine smiled before dashing her a wink, to which Cosmo flushed a little. Blaze rolled her eyes at the sight before helping Amy with the suitcases, and eventually watching him drive away.

"He seemed friendly." Tikal smiled as Cosmo shrugged.

"They all seem like it. We've known better." Cosmo admitted as Tikal nodded. Whether she liked admitting it or not, those two months changed her life and she had known better than to be fooled by a pretty face.

"C'mon, this is a brand new start in a brand new place!" Amy said lightening up the mood as the three girls looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Well, kind of. You know what I mean!" Amy huffed playfully before the three girls laughed at the hedgehog before entering their home.

 **~x~**

Luckily for Tikal there was an elevator because she knew that there was no way that she was going to carry all of her suitcases up the stairs. Unlike Amy, she at least chose the second floor, Blaze had chosen the third floor and poor Amy had chosen the fourth. Cosmo, being her usual lazy self, just picked the first floor. The girls had thought of staying on the same floor, but Blaze that it would be more _realistic_ to be independent so stay at the bottom of each other on each floor but Amy had thought of if they wanted to do _the thing_ , so the girls decided to be independent and not beneath each other, but at least they were in the same building. Tikal had to admit, she wasn't such a huge fan of this, mainly because she didn't really like being alone for so long. Maybe it was because when her father abandoned her in a way, the girls were all she had. But she knew that they did have to become independent some time. The friendship was still there, but they didn't need to hang out _all_ the time.

Tikal sighed, before finding apartment **3F.** She looked at the quite-wide and long hallway before unlocking the dark green door, only to see one of the best apartments that she had ever since in her life. Nice shiny wooden floor with a small cute light blue kitchen table with four matching light blue chairs. There was a brown arm chair at the sight of the living room, which a matching brown couch leaning on the wall, facing the black and white TV sitting on the table. Tikal smiled at her green curtains before looking at the view of the city. She could really get used to a place like this. Smiling, she walked up the stairs before dropping her suitcases in her room. She smiled at the sight of the queen sized bed covered with nice purple satin sheets as in front of it was a nice wooden swing chair. Tikal jumped on the soft bed, before gazing out of her bay window, a little part of her wanted to look at her new home in awe all day but she knew that she had to unpack, get supplies for the house and even start looking for a new job. Tikal sighed, before getting out of the bed, starting her new life.

 **~xxx~**

"Shadow!" someone cheered as Shadow walked into Chaotix Bar as he gave a small smile to Vector, the green crocodile who owned the place. Vector was probably one of the only people who knew who could make a bar and become rich off it. It was amazing how many parties he threw in able to make it into quite a successful business, although he wasn't a big fan of the crocodile personally considering that he didn't exactly know how to keep a secret and was willing to do anything for money, even though it hurt other people but then again, that was what people called business? Especially those with the likes of Scourge the Hedgehog.

"Hey Vector." Shadow groaned, not in the mood for his wild behaviour.

"What's got you so down Shad?" Sonic, the blue hedgehog with emerald eyes in brown suspenders with his white shirt sleeves rolled up asked with a grin on his face as Shadow frowned, out of all his friends, the one that annoyed him the most was Sonic. Mainly because he was purposely trying to get _feelings_ out of him, or simply his cocky, care-free attitude, either way, he annoyed him. But they were still friends, the annoyance was more of a friendly spar because in the end, he did care for the annoying hedgehog, but he was never going to admit it out loud because if he did, he knew that he will _never_ hear the end of it.

"Nothing, _Faker_. And for the last time, don't call me Shad." He hissed, using his favourite nickname to shut the hedgehog up as Sonic raised his arms up in defence.

"Alright, don't burn the whole bar down." Manic, the green hedgehog with blue eyes, brother to Sonic in the black suspenders with white long sleeves commented, settling the two hedgehogs down as Shadow let out a short laugh.

" _Anyway_ , before you guys all kill each other, we've got your usual order." Vector said towards Shadow as he let out a small smile. On a day like today, he needed his usual shots of vodka. He walked towards the bar, before Espio, the purple chameleon and one of Vector's best friends handed him the shot of vodka before Shadow drink it hastily.

"Woah, you normally drink vodka like scotch, what the hell is going on?" Silver, the silver hedgehog in a white short sleeve shirt and plaid pants asked as Shadow glared at him a bit before sighing, while Espio was currently giving him another round of vodka.

" _Fuckin'_ Scourge Enterprises. That's the hell what's going on." Shadow explained before about to drink his vodka only for Knuckles, the red buff echidna with purple eyes in the red long sleeve striped shirt and brown pants to snatch it away from him.

"What the hell?" Shadow snapped at the echidna as Knuckles frowned. "We all care for you, but none of us want to see you drunk out of your ass."

"Okay, let's not have a fight over who cares about who more or anything like that." Tails, the yellow fox with blue eyes in a pink plaid shirt and black shirt suggested, doing his usual bring peace to the group as Shadow sighed. As much as he wasn't a mushy guy, he did need his friends right at a moment like this, whether he liked to or not.

"Besides, four foxy ladies just entered the bar, behave will ya?" Vector insisted as Shadow raised an eyebrow. Of course, Vector was also quite the _ladies man_. Sure, he didn't mind casual flirting here and there and neither did his friends—even though Tails was quite the _awkward_ flirter—but Vector was a real _ladies man_. Although not many of the ladies he liked _liked him back_ but he liked to flirt a lot. A little bit too much if you asked him.

Shadow watched Vector walk over to the _foxy ladies_ that Vector was trying to get a _swing_ at and realised that they were really attractive. The first one was a lavender cat, her eyes as gold as Silvers, a nice red jewel in the middle of her forehead, not contrasting with her purple fur as she was in a black and white polka dot Hepburn dress. Her arms were folded, probably not falling for the crap that Vector was saying to her, not like he could blame her or anything. Next to her was a green seedrain, her blue eyes seemed fascinated by the bar decorations but he wasn't too sure that she was listening to Vector but she still looked nice in her dark blue collar dress. Next to her was pink hedgehog in the red polka-dot swing dress who like the cat, wasn't falling for Vector's crap either but had an interesting smile on her face, probably interesting on how long he was going to pull it out on them for. And finally, the girl at the end, who was probably the only one who was interested in Vector's crap, was the girl who he seemed interested about the most.

She wasn't as tall as him, maybe it was her heels making her look taller than she needed. She was in a nice red jumper dress, with a white blouse underneath it. Not many girls pulled off that look very well, sometimes, he knew some girls that would only go with the jumper dress and _not_ the white blouse or some girls just didn't know the colour that blended that skin well but she did. Her smile was cute too, glistening her cobalt eyes as she was dashing Vector's cute smiles here and there. He was infatuated by her, even though she was a lot _more_ innocent than all the girls he was usually infatuated by, he was defiantly infatuated by this one.

"Woah, those girls are smokin'." Silver grinned before whistling.

" _Which one of you fucking whistled at us?_ " The lavender cat hissed, walking up to them as Silver gulped. If there was anything that Shadow had studied right now about her, it was that she was defiantly _not_ someone to mess with and defiantly wasn't like Silver's type of girls.

"Do we look like _dogs_ to you?" She hissed rhetorically as Silver was about to answer but Manic covered his mouth quickly, causing him from saying anything stupid.

"Blaze!" the pink hedgehog shrieked before giving them an apologetic look. "Sorry, she's very _sensitive_ to guys at the moment."

"And are you?" Sonic asked with his usual cocky grin as Shadow rolled his eyes at his poor attempt to flirt with the girl, but he couldn't help but admit that the pink and blue would look cute together.

"Still thinking about it." She flirted before Sonic smirked as all Shadow wanted to do was gag at the two of them. It was clear that they clearly had a physical attraction, but could they please do it somewhere else where it was just the two of them and not giving each other eye sex at the moment.

"Everything okay? We just got back from talking with the crocodile. Boy he can talk." The green seedrain commented as the echidna was right beside her, as Shadow was trying his best not to check her out obviously, although it was pretty hard.

"Oh, don't worry about him, you'd get used to his flirting." Tails reassured before dashing seedrain a smile, making a smile back as all Shadow wanted to do was gag. Couldn't people keep the eye sex and the smile filtrations to themselves?

"So, we know you're Blaze." Manic said, pointing at the lavender cat before glancing at the other girls before asking "so what are your names?"

"I'm Amy." The pink hedgehog smiled. "And this is Cosmo and Tikal." She said, pointing at the green seedrain and peach echidna.

"Tikal, what a nice name." Shadow muttered, but loud enough for Tikal to hear as she glanced at him, before giving him a small smile, making him flush awkwardly. He knew that his friends were going to ask him questions about what he said and were probably looking at each other in confusion but he was currently trying his best to ignore them.

"Oh… um… thank you." Tikal flushed, before Shadow gave her an awkward smile. He wasn't an awkward person in general, but something about her made him less of himself and he wasn't sure why.

"So, what brings you girls to the bar?" Knuckles asked.

"It's Tikal's first drink." Amy answered as Shadow eyes widened a little. She did look quite young but he didn't expect her to _just_ turn twenty-one.

"Oh, what did you get?" Silver asked curiously, the first sensible thing that he said ever since, he well, _whistled._

"Vodka." Tikal admitted as Shadow eyes widened more. He was mainly impressed, because most girls either take scotch on the rocks or start with something simple like beer, not move straight to vodka.

"Really? Not something simple like beer?" Knuckles asked with a confused tone.

"Beer sounded too boring. I kind of wanted to try real alcoholic stuff." She admitted as Manic cocked an eyebrow before plastering a smirk on Shadow only for him to look at him with a confused expression, saying _what the fuck are you thinking_?

"Fun story here. My pal, Shadow over here just happens to love vodka." Manic admitted before Shadow glared at him, only to see a bunch of smirks some the guys and not to mention a wink from Manic before returning to the girls.

"Really? Vodka?" Blaze asked surprised as Shadow sighed. This was the main reason why he didn't tell people about that was because he knew that people were going to judge him.

"Blaze don't judge. Maybe Vodka is sweet to him." Tikal defended. He wasn't sure why she was defending him, she had just met him, but the fact that she defended him made him feel so _secure_ around her, like he could count on her for anything. She smiled as Espio brought out a shot of vodka, before telling her that it was on the house—typical Chaotix Bar saying for pretty girls—before Tikal looked at the shot of vodka. She probably didn't know _how_ to drink it, which he didn't know why but he found kind of cute.

"You take it in one go." Silver explained as her mouth formed an 'o' shape, but glancing at the shot glance, before drinking it in one go as everyone cheered including Shadow who wasn't really a _cheery_ guy.

"You like it?" Amy asked as her eyes widened a bit before dropping the shot glass.

"It's really bitter." She giggled, before trying to stand up, only to have to hold on to the chair. She was probably getting a bit tipsy, considering that this was her first time probably taking any form of alcohol. Amy caught her, before swinging her arm over her shoulder.

"Wow, you're a light drinker." Amy giggled before turning to the guys. "It was nice to meet you…?"

"Oh, how rude of us." Manic said before sighing and introducing himself. "I'm Manic, the blue hedgehog over here who was giving you eye sex is my younger brother Sonic— "

"Younger by five minutes and I wasn't giving her eye sex!" Sonic defended as Manic gave him a _yeah right_ look.

 _Yeah right. You looked like you were going to bang her brains out right in front of us._

"Anyway, the yellow fox is Tails, the silver hedgehog who was an _idiot_ is Silver—"

"So sorry about that." He apologised as Shadow turned to Blaze who seemed to give him a small smile, suggesting that maybe she was over it and willing to forgive him.

"The red knucklehead echidna is Knuckles and finally, the black crimson hedgehog who loves vodka is Shadow." Manic finalized as Tikal smiled.

"That's cute." Tikal smiled as Shadow flushed, trying not to take her words to seriously considering that she was a little bit tipsy at the moment.

"Well, we should go, but it was nice to meet you guys." Cosmo smiled before the girls walked away, hearing the door of the bar close behind them as Shadow ever wondered if he was going to ever see Tikal again. He wasn't sure why, but she defiantly wasn't like other girls. She actually wanted to _know_ her. He wanted to know Tikal.

 **~xxx~**

 **WOO HOO! DONE WITH CHAPTER ONE! I WILL BE POSTING KNUXOUGE HIGHSCHOOL STORY BY THE END OF THIS WEEK SO PLEASE CHECK IT OUT! I'D GIVE YOU A HINT, IT'S GOING TO BE CALLED 'REBELLIOUS' AND I'M SO EXCITED TO WRITE IT AND PRETTY MUCH AS EXCITED AS I AM TO BE FINALLY WRITING A SHADIKAL STORY I LIKE AND I PLAN ON CONTINUING TO WRITE: D**

 **More about everyone's past would come soon and we will soon know what happened in the Casino Night Zone and why Scourge and Shadow have such beef and why Shadow finds vodka** ** _bittersweet?_** **I actually got that idea from jazzisms [read her stories, they are** ** _awesome!_** **] Anyway, hope you enjoy this, see you soon, peace out suckers!**


	2. 02

**Hey there guys and I hoped you all liked chapter one and thanks so much for the follows, favs and the review so far! Hope you all like chapter two. There'll be some new characters introduced, some drama and a little bit of the past will be revealed. Also, I might change the fashion and the music in the era some 21** **st** **century style music and fashion, I wouldn't go as far as saying** ** _skinny jeans_** **and stuff but may some 21** **st** **century** ** _style_** **. [if that makes any more sense.]**

 **~xxx~**

 **2 | haunting**

 **"** **I was not giving her eye sex!" Sonic huffed at everyone for the millionth time.**

Shadow rolled his eyes, probably tiring of arguing with the annoying hedgehog and wondered why on Mobius he had brought him back to his manor. Sure, he liked his friends at all, but not when they were acting like babies and huffing over something that was _so_ obvious and gag worthy.

"Whatever man." Knuckles sighed, probably giving up like Shadow had done. He was still impressed over how they were still talking about those girls, or how the Tikal girl was still on his mind. She looked innocent, she probably was anyway. Her small innocent frame, her nice smile, everything about her seemed stuck in his head and he usually wasn't like this with women but she was different. She wasn't like most women he had seen. She wasn't trying to swoon him over with her _assets_ or trying to figure out how much money he had, he was pretty sure that she wouldn't even care about that. He wanted to know her, but he was pretty sure that he was never going to see her again.

"We're never going to see them again anyway." Shadow shrugged as the boys looked at him before Tails coughed awkwardly before saying "I wouldn't say _never_. I mean, I'm pretty sure we can find them _somewhere_."

"Why do you even what to look for them anyway?" Manic asked as Tails shrugged, but of course, everyone knew the answer to that question.

"They seem like nice people." Sonic suggested as Shadow agreed, but didn't want to show it. He was known in the group as the type of guy who didn't really show his emotions but something about her made it all different. He didn't mind wanting to see her again of course, but if he showed it or even mentioned it to his friends? He was never going to hear the end of it so instead he just shrugged.

"So what? You want to look around the whole of Station Square for four girls?" Knuckles cocked sarcastically, showing that he did find the idea of it very stupid. Although the Tikal girl did seem interesting, the way Knuckles put it was something that was kind of stupid and looked like they were stalking them. Stalking complete strangers that they didn't know about but yet, wanted to know more about.

"You know when you say it like that, we sound like creeps." Silver commented, as if reading Shadow's mind completely.

"That's the point, what if these girls are bad news?" Knuckles asked.

"What if they're not?" Shadow counter backed, not realising what he had just said before he said it out loud and was wondering why he was defending a bunch of strangers in the first place.

Knuckles sighed, before raising his arms up in defense. "Fine, do whatever you want. I'm just saying that they could be bad news."

"Knuckles, we've dealt with a lot of bad news in our lives, how bad could they possibly be?" Sonic scoffed as Shadow nodded, normally not agreeing with Sonic but couldn't help but take his point at the moment.

 **~xxx~**

Scourge smiled proudly, his feet on his desk as he couldn't help but smirk on the newspaper article. It took a lot of work but he finally did it. He was in competition with Shadow the Hedgehog. He knew that this was breaking him, no matter how many times he'd go to the bar with his stupid friends trying to clear his thoughts with _vodka_. He knew that this was killing him, and soon, he'd be able to destroy that stupid company and rule the manufacturing industries with the power of his hand. Many people called it wickedness but he didn't care, they didn't understand what made him hate Shadow the Hedgehog so much and they were never going to. He wasn't too keen about telling people about his past and he sure as hell liked it that. He didn't need too many questions, especially with this rivalry going on. He knew that the press would soon ask him a large amount of questions about this rivalry, which he clearly wasn't in the mood for considering that he has to pretend to be 'supportive of Shadow's business' even though all he wanted to do was punch the bastard in the face.

"Scourge?" someone said, snapping him out of his thoughts as he turned to the pair of blue eyes before smirking at his secretary.

"Yes, Alicia?" He grinned as she frowned at him. Their past relationship was rocky, considering that it was only sex. Well, it was fun for him, until the sex wasn't good for him and he met Fiona, and then everything changed. He loved teasing her about his relationship, considering him and Fiona were not really on speaking terms at the moment—haven't been for four years—but he was pretty sure that she hated the hell out of him. Not like he minded, he had gotten what he wanted from her anyway and he was quite surprised when she wanted to be his secretary, considering the last time they saw each other, he was holding hands with Fiona Fox when she wanted to tell him something important. He guessed it was probably not that important anymore, but that didn't mean he liked to tease her.

"You have a guest." Alicia said as Scourge cocked an eyebrow. He had never had that many guests, besides Fiona of course and he would _know_ if it was Fiona, after all, Fiona did like to make an entrance. He glanced at the chipmunk before giving her a signal meaning _send him in_. she sighed, before walking away, allowing Scourge to glance at her figure as she walked away. She was attractive, maybe he could start what he did before he met Fiona again. His cocked eyebrow remained as he watched the black hedgehog with green pupils walk in. He was in a suit, covered with a brown jacket as he had powered streaks of blue on his head. He looked a lot like Shadow so part of him thought that he was a brother or something, then again Shadow mentioned nothing about his childhood to him.

"And you are?" Scourge asked as the hedgehog chuckled.

"Your best asset." He said cockily as Scourge rolled his eyes. He surely wasn't in the mood for cocky people.

"Look pal, I know what my best asset is, and it's my little man downstairs if you know what I mean." He grinned as the hedgehog frowned, understanding his statement before Scourge coughed awkwardly. " _Anyway_ , who are you?" he asked, getting to the point.

"I'm Mephiles. And I can help you as we both have the same problem." he said as Scourge cocked an eyebrow. He had been doing a lot of that lately with this guy.

"Alright, _Mephiles_. What do you have that I so need?" he asked as Mephiles chuckled before smiling.

"You see, I went to jail for _killing my wife_. Which I didn't. I may have abused her, here and there, but I defiantly didn't kill her. Someone framed me, and that person is the person we both want to see fall." He explained as Scourge gulped. He was never afraid of anyone but he was going to say this guy was creepy, considering that he admitted that he used to abuse his wife. He connected the dots in the his head, before a smirk was on his face.

"So you're Shadow's father? The evil man who made him runaway at the age of sixteen to live with me, his best friend?" Scourge smirked as the hedgehog couldn't help but smile.

"I'm Shadow's worst nightmare. And considering that the last time I saw him, we were living in old crappy apartment with a broken shower, I was surprised to here that he has one of the largest manufacturing companies." he shrugged before Scourge cocked an eyebrow.

"So, you're here to crush your son's dream? Little harsh isn't it?" Scourge smirked as Mephiles scoffed.

"Says the man who wants to see his best friend fall." Mephiles smirked back, sitting down on the chair before Scourge narrowed his eyes.

"That's _ex-best friend_." Scourge hissed as Mephiles laughed at the hedgehog's attitude.

"Wow. Something happen? Did you want more than friendship and he couldn't give it to you? I'm quite surprised, considering that my son's quite the fag." Mephiles commented.

"I'm not _fuckin' gay._ " Scourge snapped before Mephiles raised his arms up defencelessly as Scourge let out a breath, cooling himself down and asking "So what can you do for me?"

"I'm Shadow's worst nightmare. Anything would work really." He smirked as Scourge couldn't help but smirk back. He liked this, he liked the idea of having his own secret weapon at the background, and the idea that Crimson Industries was going to have a hard, heavy fall.

 **~xxx~**

 _Tikal felt the night cool breeze as she walked to the orphanage centre. She didn't want to do this, but she had to. There was nothing that she could provide for her, for her little bundle of joy. If there was anything that she was grateful about, it was that she had her eyes. Her nice tiny cobalt eyes, she remembered when she saw them for the very first time, and now, she was never going to see them again. She knew it was for the best, her friends and her were broke, staying in the cheap motel for a few nights as that's all they could afford together. Tikal sighed, before looking at a pink wolf with a set of blue eyes smiling at her as her purple hair was packed up into a nice ponytail._

 _"Hi, I'm Lyco Wolf and welcome to Lyco's and Leeta's orphanage." She introduced with a friendly smile as Tikal smiled back._

 _"Hello." She smiled, trying her best to stay strong and not to break down in front of this stranger. She had already broken down in front of her friends, who had told her that this was for the best. She couldn't break down again, she had to be strong, for her._

 _"Giving her up huh?" Lyco asked as she nodded, trying to stay strong._

 _"Can't provide for her, giving her to a lovely family who can." She admitted as Lyco nodded, probably understanding her situation._

 _"You sure you want to? Many mothers try and reach out to their little ones when they realise that they can provide or if they get back with the father of the—"_

 _"Trust me, the last thing the father wants is a baby." Tikal cut off as she tried her hardest not to think about the man who had left her in her time of need and wanted nothing to do with their child._

 _"Oh, I'm sorry to here that." Lyco apologised as Tikal dashed her a friendly smile. "You didn't know, it's fine." She reassured as Lyco smiled._

 _"Right, let's get to the basics shall we?" Lyco smiled before bringing out a note pad and a pen. "Name?"_

 _"Angela the Echidna."_

 _"Weight?"_

 _"Eight ounces."_

 _"Height?"_

 _"Ten point five centimetres."_

 _"Any preferred family you'd like her to be in?"_

 _Tikal sighed before smiling. "Just anyone who is willing to love and care for her." She handed over the sleeping baby to Lyco before wiping away a small tear._

 _"If you're looking for a job, the Casino Night Zone is looking. They pay a lot of money." Lyco suggested as Tikal smiled, before thanking the wolf before beginning to walk away, if only she knew about the horrors that she was going to experience in her new job._

 **~x~**

Tikal woke up with a tear on her cheek. There isn't one moment when she hadn't thought about if she was able to provide for her and if she was in a happy family that she truly deserved. She wondered if she hadn't gone there, if Lyco hadn't suggested that, even though she was only trying to help and she truly understood that but she wondered, she hadn't given her up, would she be a mother by now? She sighed, knowing the answer. In the conditions that she was at the time, the child would have been dead, she did the right thing. She looked at her baby blue clock, the clock that she kept ever since she was a kid as it read **8:00AM** on the dot. Tikal got out of bed, before thinking of what to do. Firstly, she needed to find a job obviously, she wasn't going to be able to stay in this paradise forever.

She walked downstairs before seeing the local newspaper in front of her door. She picked it up, before looking at the back of the newspaper, looking at the back of the newspaper. Most of the job opening were for men—no surprise there—and she tried her best not to glance at the other _interesting_ jobs. Her eyes widened a little at the help wanted in _Pachacamac_. Tikal sighed, looking at the help needed in her father's antique shop. It had been so long since she seen him, and she was wondering if she was ever going to see him. No matter how much he had hurt her, he was still the only form of family she had. Her mother had died during child birth; her grandmother had died when she was five. It was only her and her dad and yet, she had managed to ruin that relationship as well. She needed to mend it, she hated the idea of not having any family relatives to turn to.

Tikal looked down before seeing _typist needed urgently at Crimson Industries_. Tikal furrowed her eyebrows, before looking at the front page seeing,

 ** _Did typist quit at Crimson to work for Scourge Enterprises?_**

Tikal smiled at the thought of her new job. Being a typist shouldn't be to hard, all you do is type right? And besides, if she was going to go to her father's shop, it would be for anything _but_ for asking for a job. She smiled, before getting ready for the day.

 **~xxx~**

"Why the hell would you publish _that_ in the newspaper?" Shadow spat at Lien-Da as she narrowed her icy blue eyes at him.

"First off, I didn't _publish_ it. I told some random worker in Breezie's office to publish it. Secondly, we have _no typist_. We have to show the job vacancy somewhere." Lien-Da defended as Shadow sighed. This was surely not want he wanted. Although he really did need a typist and maybe this was the only way to do it, newspapers were already printing out that his typist had quit for Scourge's Enterprises. He knew Breezie, she wasn't on his side and neither was she on Scourge's. She was on any side which made her newspapers and her career look good. He didn't know how to feel about her, but he sure wasn't enjoying her for this.

"You went to _Breezie's!_ Just perfect Lien, exactly what we needed right now. You want to bet she's making assumptions and putting them as her headline?" Shadow hissed before rubbing his temples. He knew that he couldn't take out his anger on Lien forever but there was no one else to blame. He was partly slacking off from work due to the fact that he didn't have a typist—it was a stupid reason to slack off, he knew—but maybe Lien doing this _may_ help him.

"Hey, don't blame me you never know—"

 **KNOCK KNOCK.**

The sound on the knock on the door interrupted her sentence as Shadow turned, only to see Tikal with a friendly smile standing on his doorstep. He gave her small smile, before looking at her up and down.

 _Gosh, she's beautiful._

Her figure fit into a dark green jacket, buttoned up neatly matching with a dark green tight sheath skirt, showing her curves. She wasn't as curvy as most ladies that he had seen, but he didn't care. With her, he seemed not to care. Her dreadlocks were let down; unlike the last time he saw her in a ponytail. Her face still looked cute, her face looked cute no matter what.

 _Okay, this girl really is beautiful._

 _Shadow, you need to stop._

"Hi." she smiled. "I'm not interrupting something am I?" she asked politely as Lien-Da looked at her before cocking an eyebrow.

"You are?" she asked as Tikal flushed embarrassingly. "I-I um… heard about the typist job and—"

"Oh." She cut off before a coy smile escaped from her lips as she turned to Shadow who was narrowing him eyes at her.

"Well, what do you know?" She shrugged as Shadow frowned at the echidna before she dashed him a smile before walking away from the office as Shadow sighed, before looking at a curious Tikal.

"I'm sorry. She's very… well, you'd get used to her." Shadow apologised as she smiled at him.

 _Her smile is cute_

 _Shadow, stop! She came here for a job, not for coffee._

"So, you want to be a typist?" Shadow asked, changing the topic as Tikal nodded.

"What inspired you?" he asked as Tikal giggled a little. "I was looking at a newspaper and I saw the job opening."

"Oh." Was all Shadow let out as he watched her expression turn into a worried expression.

"I probably shouldn't have said it _that way_." Tikal apologised as Shadow shook his head at her, finding it ridiculous that she was blaming herself for this.

"No, no." he said as she looked at him puzzled. "Just." He sighed. "I'm not the best with newspapers at the moment."

Her mouth went into an o shape before awkward silence filled the room before she smiled bravely. "How about if we were to get coffee?"

His eyes widened at her offer. Not because he didn't want to go with her, but surprised that she had offered that at all.

"You could interview me and we could talk. Only if, you want to." She offered as a small smile escaped his lips. She was probably the sweetest person that he had met in the whole of Mobotropolis, apart from his mother, but that was a sour topic.

"Sure. That would be nice." He accepted as she smiled gleefully, as Shadow couldn't help but chuckle at how cute she was.

 **~xxx~**

Amy sighed before walking into _Vanilla's Diner_. Vanilla was a sweet rabbit who used to be her neighbour. Her daughter Cream, was the sweetest thing and always liked to come over to Amy's house. She taught Cream everything, well everything before she left without saying goodbye. It's not like she didn't want to. But she knew that saying goodbye was going to make it harder than it should have been. Amy walked it, the usual bell rattling as someone walked in before locking a pair of brown eyes. She realised it was Vanilla, although she had aged, a few grey hairs sticking out here and there. Amy smiled before Vanilla's eyes widened, probably in shock before dropping the pot of coffee and walking up to her, before giving her a hug.

She smelt of fresh oranges and apples, as usual. Amy smiled before hugging her back before letting go after a few minutes.

"Amy, it's been way too long." Vanilla smiled as Amy smiled at her. She was like her second mother, caring and sweet. Her birth mother on the other hand, was something that she never wanted to mention in her life and her father? Well, if only she knew where he was.

"I know and I'm sorry. Things got too hectic with Rob and—"

"I know, sweetie." She cut off, giving her a motherly smile as Amy smiled back at her. "Oh, Cream would be so happy to see you!"

"Really? She doesn't hate—"

"Amy?" she heard someone choke up as she turned only to see a pair of caramel eyes looking at her up and down as Amy's jade eyes did the same thing. Sweet little Cream was not the tiny ten-year-old that she had left. She was her height, her hair had grown a little longer and she couldn't help but smile at the fact that she was a wearing a poodle skirt. She always wore poodle skirts when Cream came over.

"You're so pretty!" she said gleefully as she received a hug, hugging back instantly as the two let go after a few seconds.

"Me? What about you? You're gorgeous!" Amy replied as positive as Cream smiled at her 'sister.' Amy looked at her before having a mischievous grin before whispering playfully "Is someone wearing a _bra_?" she teased as she giggled at the sight of the young rabbit blushing.

" _Amy._ " She groaned, embarrassed as Amy cocked an eyebrow. "Any boys I want to know about?" she winked as Cream flushed more as Amy couldn't help but laugh. She loved teasing Cream every chance that she had, and she had missed it.

"Better not be." Vanilla smiled, before earning a laugh from the two as she walked back into the kitchen as Amy smiled at Cream and the two sat by the stools. Cream had talked about school, how there was a jerk called Bean who bullied people and how she was best friends with a guy named Charmy—of course, she had asked if there was any _romance_ between to which the young rabbit replied with a no but Amy still didn't believe her—and Amy had breezed of about Casino Night Zone and mainly talked about the events after that. She wasn't going to poison Cream's young mind. She still loved the world and she was going to keep it that way. She glanced at the window, only to see a pair of purple eyes at she would always remember.

 _Mari-An_

Nothing much had changed about her, maybe her dreadlocks had grown a little longer. She looked at Amy, before walking away as Amy followed her direction.

"Cream, I've got to go. I'd see you tomorrow." She reassured before patting the rabbit affectionately before walking out of the diner, she managed to catch up the echidna before looking at her eye to eye.

"What are you doing here? I thought that you and Rob moved to Mercia after—"

"Plans change." she said coldly, before trying to walk past but she grabbed her hand. She wasn't going to be the girl who smiled to Vanilla and Cream but was scared of the people taking care of her. She was grown up, she went threw hell and she came back. She had to face the past, she knew the costs of coming back and she was going to face them.

"How?" she asked sternly before Mari-An looked at her surprised, not like she could blame her. Amy was always snappy, she didn't like to listen as Rob put it but she would never do to Mari-An, partly because she was afraid of her but this wasn't the past. This was now, and now, she was a twenty-one-year-old woman who could fight for herself and didn't need Rob anymore.

"I left Rob." she admitted as Amy let go off her grip, surprised that she didn't walk away when she said it. She probably knew that Amy wasn't done with this conversation and this conversation had only begun.

"You _what?_ " Amy said, confused and surprised at the information that she had just been told.

"I told you. I left him. Well, Jon and I did."

"You just left _him?_ " Amy hissed as Mari-An cocked an eyebrow. "Don't act innocent. You left him too."

Amy knew that her temper was like a bomb. Tamper with it and she'd explode you into a million pieces. She controlled it, most of the time but this was one of the moments when all she wanted to be was be a bomb towards Mari-An.

" _I_ left him? I was _told_ to leave. I wasn't wanted by you two! _You_ didn't want me! You called me too much baggage even when I looked for jobs, even when I tried to make my own food and help around the house, I was still baggage! It's not my fault my parents weren't perfect. It's not my fault that my dad is nowhere to be found and my mother, being the best mother she could be, _committed suicide!_ I was alone! And the only person that I had left didn't want me. So don't tell me some bullshit about how I left and didn't care about anything, because I cared a _damn_ lot. But you were probably too busy _fucking_ arguing to care. And because of that, I went through hell. And I want you to remember, that it was _your_ fault I went through that." Amy let out as Mari-An looked at her speechless, her expression shocked and worried as she opened her mouth but Amy spoke first.

"Don't." she hissed. "If you cared, you would have asked about my past a long time ago." And with that she walked away, wiping the tears from her eyes. She wasn't ready to forgive Mari-An, she probably never would, but she didn't care about that. All she wanted to do was see Rob, that's all she needed right now. The only member of her family left.

 **~xxx~**

 **Woah, Tikal had a child? Who's the father?**

 **Mari-An isn't exactly a** ** _bitch_** **. She didn't exactly know Amy's past life why? Well, her story would come soon but poor Amy! But the question is, where** ** _is_** **her father? What drove her mother to suicide? How exactly did she end up in Rob and Mari-An hands? What happened while Amy was in the house? What happened between the two of them?**

 **Yes, Mephlies is Shadow's father. Why?** ** _Cause I'm evil –cue evil laugh-._** **Nah, it's because he resembles Shadow the most in the sonic franchise. What exactly happened to Shadow and his mother during his childhood? Did Mephiles** ** _really_** **kill Shadow's mother? And what the hell is up with Scourge and Fiona? Why did Shadow and Scourge's friendship end? More to come soon.**

 **But the chapter didn't end** ** _so_** **bad, we still all have that cute little Shadikal moment. ;)**

 **More couple moments, characters POV, drama, past and new characters coming up!**

 **[btw, the next chapter, Rouge would be making an appearance! Does she know anyone in Station Square? You'd fine out!]**

 **Anyway, hope you all liked this chapter. The next chapter would be longer as** ** _more things_** **are happening [may or may not be a limey-lemony scene, not sure yet]. Anyway, see you all next time on Time. [this is really annoying -_- ]**

 **PEACE OUT!**


	3. 03

**Thank you jessicashadow and HistoryCrimson for your amazing reviews so far and for all those who have been reading this story! Welcome to chapter three! This would probably be one of the longest chapters as a large amount would be happening so sit back, chillax with some popcorn or something and enjoy this chapter!**

 **~xxx~**

 **3 | old faces**

 **"** **Ms Rouge, it's good to have you back from your vacation." Razor witted out, his voice dripping with sarcasm.**

Rouge smirked at the shark, ignoring his little sarcastic remark. The two weren't the best of friends, even though he was her manager at the moment. She had gone on a _vacation_ , but it was really to sort some things out. Luckily, she was smart enough to go in a disguise, considering with her acting career pulling through and all, if one person caught her _not_ acting, then she'd be doomed. She knew what this business was like, one slip up and you're doomed forever, like with Fiona Fox. No one has heard of her every since, and Rouge knew exactly why, but she had to kept it to herself. Sadly, even though the two weren't besties, Fiona knew things about Rouge that could wreck her career. One thing that could wreck both her career, and someone else's. She wasn't going to ruin that, no matter what.

"Aww, miss me Razor?" she cooed as she watched his golden eyes glare at her intensely before replying "Miss you? I had to be covering for all your _crap_. Your vacation was a _year_. A year without movies? Especially in _your_ state, Rouge!" he snapped as Rouge narrowed her eyes at him.

She knew _exactly_ what he meant by her state. He meant her state as a woman. She hated the sexism in the business, even though it had improved from when she started but it still was there. Men seemed to find a way to get back on track no matter what they did, everything _they_ did was perfect but there was always something wrong with when _women_ did it. It was either too manly, or showing women the _wrong idea about them_ , or too _slutty._ There was always something and she was sick of it, then again, it was her only source of money and although it was sexist, she did love the attention. Maybe it was because she had very buxom body and she loved to flaunt it or that she was quite proud of who she was, ever since she was a kid, even though her parents rarely noticed her. It hurt that they didn't, but other people did and that was the point of it all.

"Look, I'm sorry. Had a lot of business to take care of." Rouge admitted. That was not a lie, she did have business that she was taking care of but she was never going to tell Razor _what_ the business was exactly. It was stupid, very stupid and she knew telling Razor would only make him angrier than he already was at her right now. She had done a large amount of stupid things that Razor had to care of but she couldn't tell him this. This was too personal, something that she wasn't sure was true or not yet and she wasn't just going to tell people about it just yet.

Razor sighed, before rubbing his temple "I did manage to find you an audition though." He admitted as Rouge had a grin on her face.

"See, everything worked out perfect—"

" _But_ , Julie-Su is also auditioning for the role." he cut off as Rouge's smile turned into a frown. Julie was her arch-enemy, surprisingly worse than Fiona and that girl was a _true_ bitch but Julie, Julie was different, she only seemed to be out for _her_ , even though she had been nice to her on the first day that she had met her, she seemed to be out to get her for some reason. Part of her thought that it was because she had a bigger career by the time Julie started but her career seemed to be going towards a good start, matching up to hers and she defiantly didn't want Julie to beat her. Not like she was going to.

"Why her? You know how much I hate her!" Rouge hissed as Razor cocked an eyebrow before scoffing "I'm sorry, where have you been this year?"

Rouge frowned at his statement, trying her best not to curse him on the spot as she sighed, calming herself down. "Alright, who's the director?" she asked, praying that it wasn't someone that she knew as Razor sighed.

"It's Sally Acorn." He admitted as Rouge bit her lip. Sally Acorn was one of the most famous _female_ directors out there and was one of the most top 50 directors well known. Being in her movies would not only boost her popularity but would be an honour and there was no way that she was going to lose to Julie-Su.

"Well then, when's the audition? What's the role for? I need _some_ details." she requested as Razor sighed before looking at the sheet in front of him. "Alright, the movie is called _lèvres rouges_." He started off as Rouge's eyes widened a bit, interested in what her new movie role was in a French-named movie as Razor continued to look at the file. "Your role would be the main character, Adelaide, torn between the man she's in love with and the man she's supposed to be with." Razor explained as Rouge scoffed.

She hated those movies, those hopeless romantics but then again, that's what she was famous for and the last thing she needed was changing her normal thing and not turning out exactly like the way that she wanted. She sighed, before looking at the aggravated shark as she gave him a forced smile. "Alright, I'd go. When is the audition?" Rouge asked as Razor looked at the paper. "On November first at one-thirty in the afternoon. Can you make it? I can negotiate with—"

"No." Rouge cut off, harshly than she intended. "I'd go. Considering that if I don't, you'd kill me for it. I need to start and I know it." she said as Razor raised an eyebrow, probably impressed by what she had said. "Alright." Razor smirked as Rouge got off, seeing a confused hawk as she chuckled. "What? I'm back in Station Square, there's some ground I need to cover first." she winked, before walking away from the probably annoyed shark.

 **~xxx~**

Rouge sighed, before walking into the boxing alley. This is the last place that she ever pictured herself in being in but she needed to come here. She walked inside, before seeing the red echidna punching the punching bag. Nothing much had changed about him, only the fact that he had grown taller and he had grown more muscles. His purple eyes glanced at her for a minute, before he stopped punching as he held the bag before rolling his eyes at her.

"Shouldn't you be in a disguise or something?" he commented flatly as Rouge bit her lip. She deserved that, in fact, she was going to deserve all the harsh remarks that he was going to give her. "I needed to see you as _me._ " she explained as she tried to stay strong about what was going to happen between them. She wasn't going to lie and say that her little vacation had nothing to do with him, he was partly the reason for it, not like she was ever going to tell Razor that. "Look Rouge." He started off, walking out of the boxing ring. "You chose what you wanted, why are you even back anyway?"

That question brought a strange feeling to her chest, but she ignored it. She had to, she knew that what happened between them was nothing romantic and was _never_ going to be romantic. She folded her lips, didn't know how to answer the question that wouldn't turn out selfish but she knew that no matter what she said, it was going to be selfish. "I got a role." she said, the words coming out of her mouth as her mouth tasted bitter after saying those red echidna scoffed, not much to her surprise as he removed his punching bags before asking "Why are you seeing me?"

She didn't know how to answer that question. In all honesty, she didn't know _why_ she was here. She could go to any hotel, resort, fancy apartment, buy a house for all she knew in the whole of Mobotropolis and here she was, standing in front of the last person that wanted to see her. Part of her wanted to talk to him, know that he was okay, but the other part wasn't so sure why she was here. This was the first place that she thought of, besides Razor's office because she knew how _that_ would turn out and the letters that she had received from him when she went back to her apartment were anything _but_ friendly. "Believe it or not, this was the first place I thought of." she admitted as Knuckles raised an eyebrow, but he still had his stern face.

She hated sounded mushy and weak, it wasn't how she was, she was the complete _opposite_ of that. She was strong, never showed her emotions but something about Knuckles made it feel like she could. She never opened to anyone, she knew better than that, she had suffered to much with opening up and yet, Knuckles made her feel like she could and yet she didn't. Because there was still a part of her that was scared. "Really? It didn't seem that way when you left that didn't say goodbye." he snapped as Rouge sighed. "Why are you making this harder than it needs to be?" Rouge snapped, not knowing why she was fighting back. "Tch." he scoffed lightly, obviously showing how annoyed he was getting. "I'm sorry, since when do you care about me?"

"I never said I didn't!" she defended as Knuckles looked shocked by her words. She folded her lips, instantly regretting the words that came out of her mouth. She sighed, rubbing her biceps uncomfortably. "Look." she started off. "I'm sorry for leaving, but saying goodbye would have made it worse." she admitted. " _Nothing_ is worse than what you did. Why did you leave anyway? Every newspaper claims you left for _vacation_ but I know you." he said, his eyes fixed on hers as she looked down, trying not to look at his purple orbs.

"Maybe not, enough." she bit her lip, before beginning to walk away before hearing Knuckles shout. "So you're going to leave again?" Rouge sighed. Why was he making this so hard? He didn't know how hard he was making it for her, he didn't understand. They had two separate careers, a boxer and an actress. Her career can take her anywhere, she was a realist and he was an idealist, no matter how many times she had tried to picture it, they were never going to have whatever he wanted them to have. It was selfish, but that was Knuckles didn't understand about life. Sometimes, you have to be selfish. "I'm not leaving. I'm moving on. And I know you have." she sighed before walking out of the boxing alley, trying to ignore the hurt feeling on her chest.

 **~xxx~**

He had never been so angry in his life. He punched his punching bag like it was the end of the world and yet he didn't care, he knew that his fingers would probably come off by the time he was done punching but he didn't care. He didn't expect to see her again, he didn't _want_ to see her again and yet she came back. There was a part of him that missed her, but he learnt from the last time that he shouldn't miss her. That he should hate her for the rest of his life, after all, in his twenty-three years of living, he had never felt so angry in his life and he knew that he did get angry very easily but this was probably his worst moment. He hated this feeling, he hated the feeling that he got from _her_ and yet, he didn't hate her. He knew that he should, but he just couldn't. Why? He didn't know.

"Don't break the punching bag." someone commented as he glanced to see Shade with a small smirk on her face. Shade, his ex-girlfriend. She was just like him, the two were like peas in a pod, but the romance thing that stopped working. The two broke up on friendly terms, considering that the two normally went out for lunch and all. It wasn't awkward, it was like catching up with a friend although it was annoying when Manic brought up snide comments about how the two were eventually going to _sleep_ together but Knuckles was better than that. He had to be.

"I didn't know you were here." Knuckles said, not defending himself from her comment as he walked out of the boxing ring, removing his boxing gloves as she folded her arms.

"Well, I came earlier but I saw you talking to Rouge the Bat." Shade admitted as Knuckles bit his lip, letting out a sigh as he started to drink the remaining water from his water bottle.

"She's the one, isn't she?" she asked as Knuckles glanced at her, before swallowing the water and dropping his water bottle as he dropped the water bottle. He sighed, trying his best not to make the situation more awkward than it already was.

"I don't get what you're—"

"Knuckles, we've _broken up_. I can handle it." she said, her voice was strong and stern. Like him, she was very blunt and hated dishonesty. He didn't want to tell her like this, he didn't want to seem like he was breaking her heart but he knew that Shade was tough, that she was a strong girl. He sighed.

"Yeah, it's her." he admitted as she nodded, her arms still folded. He wasn't sure what her expression was, whether she was hurt or angry, or simply just neutral, but he sure hoped that he didn't hurt her. He watched her as she sighed before giving him a small smile.

"I didn't think you'd score _her_." she admitted as Knuckles rolled his eyes playfully as she chuckled a bit. He smiled, realising that it wasn't as awkward as she thought and that they could still keep their friendship.

"So lunch?" she asked as Knuckles nodded, walking out with her, trying his best not to think about Rouge the Bat.

 **~xxx~**

"I can't believe you're stuck here with _me_ instead of being with the girl you were giving eye sex to." Tails chuckled as Sonic scoffed, rolling his eyes playfully, watching his friend apply oil to his race car. The race coming up in a month was given Sonic the shakes, even though he was never afraid of anything. He won most of his races, in fact, he had never come _second_ in a race. He was very cocky sometimes, he knew, but he was proud of his achievements but the fact that Jet the Hawk was in his race made him sort of worried. Jet had been in rival since he entered the racing career. He had never raced Jet and this was going to be the big race. After all, Jet was the fastest in Central City, Sonic was the fastest in Station Square, this race was deciding who was the fastest, _overall_. He loved the adrenaline of racing. The speed and the excitement he got from it. Maybe it was because as a kid he had always loved cars, he remembered his Uncle Chuck always trying his best to get the new car toy every time they came out, or about driving as fast as he could was trying to drive out the horrible memories of his childhood, and the horrible memories of Jet.

"Dude, I have a race in a month, can't be dealing with girls right now." Sonic admitted as he continued to watch Tails.

Tails gave him a look. "Oh please, you're thinking about her, aren't you?" Sonic shook his head at his friend, hoping that his friend would drop it. Although, he wasn't thinking about her _right this second_ but he couldn't admit that he found her attractive. What was he saying? She was gorgeous. She was probably the prettiest girl that she had ever seen in the whole of Mobotropolis. He wasn't going to deny the fact that he was known as a charmer and he had slept with a couple of women but there was something about _her_ that made him just not want to see her as a target but as something more. He couldn't help but grin sheepishly at remembering the sight of her. Her long pink quills, her nice lips that were glossed with red lipstick and her jade eyes at he could stare at forever.

"Sonic?" Tails said, snapping him out of his trance as Sonic blinked rapidly before turning back at his two-tailed kitsune companion before giving him an awkward smile.

"Yeah bud?" Sonic grinned as Tails had nothing but an amused smirk on his face. "I've been telling you that I've applied enough oil for you to practice today but I guess you were too busy thinking about that girl to care."

Sonic frowned, annoyed that Tails was having a good fun out of this but it's not like he wasn't staring at one of her friends either. He smirked, remembering how he was smiling like a goof at her friends.

"What about you?" Sonic grinned as he watched Tails looked at him confused but he knew exactly what he was talking about.

"What _about_ me?" Tails asked back as Sonic furrowed his eyebrows, giving him a _really_ look as he watched Tails flush in front of him.

"If you're talking about her friend, I was not staring at her!" he defended as Sonic chuckled.

"I wasn't talking about that actually. But since you brought it up—"

" _Sonic_." Tails dragged, a little annoyed but Sonic couldn't take him seriously mainly due to the fact that Tails' muzzle was light pink, trying to contain his blushes but he couldn't.

"Hey guys!" someone smiled as the two animals turned around to see Ray, Tails' younger brother. Tails had started taking care of him for as long as Sonic could remember. He was impressed, considering that he lived with his siblings but surprisingly, he was the youngest and all of them had pretty good jobs—well, Manic was still _searching_ -but Ray on the other hand was just about to finish elementary school and Tails paying for everything. Ray helped out with Tails' business and even had some shifts in Vanilla's Diner but Tails always told him not to worry considering that he normally worked in a garage not to far along his home and didn't want Ray to worry about money and all just yet, considering that he was just fourteen.

"Hey Ray, how was school?" Tails asked as Ray sighed. "It was okay, although Marine still hates me."

"Aww, girl trouble, just like your brother." Sonic teased as Tails sent him a death stare before Ray's blue eyes widened with curiosity.

"You like a girl?" Ray asked as Tails gave Sonic a death stare, probably not in the mood to explain his attraction to a girl to his _younger_ brother.

"Yeah, well, I have to go practice. See you guys later!" Sonic grinned as Tails gave him another death stare as he entered the car.

" _I will kill you._ " Tails muttered as Sonic smirked before grinning at one of his best friends.

"Love you too, bud!" he grinned as he drove out of Tails' garage.

 **~xxx~**

"C'mon Amy!" Cream chirped as Amy chuckled at her excitement. She went to Vanilla's Diner after her little meeting with Mari-An, only telling Vanilla about it of course as she would never burden Cream about her broken past. Vanilla hadn't even told Cream the secret of her father, why she always sent her to Amy's house and she probably never will. She hated lying to Cream, but she knew that it was for her own safety. Cream had told her about racing, which she didn't know that she'd be interested in, apparently, a large amount of people are huge fans of _The Blue Speedster_. According to Cream, he was the coolest racers out there and was _very_ attractive. She had also told her that a large amount of girls went for his practices just to watch him _do the work_. Amy couldn't help but find that a little sad but she couldn't help but feel a little intrigued.

Amy walked over to the bleachers, before sitting on the last row on top. She watched Cream's eager eyes look at nothing but the racing track. Was he that good? Was he _that_ well known for his amazing skills? Amy watched as other girls and people walked into the bleachers, choosing seats. Some were around Cream's age or a little older and some were around her age, adjusting their hair or applying more make-up as Amy rolled her eyes at their attempt to make themselves look more _attractive_ for him. Amy's jade eyes glanced at the race track as she watched the car go in a speed that she couldn't imagine possible. Amy's eyes widened as she watched to car go round for what seemed to be the fifth time according to Cream but Amy had stop counting by the first round.

Wow, he really _was_ a speedster. She watched as his red car parked before getting out of the car as the girls crowded as she heard Cream sigh, before turning to her bunny friend.

"What's wrong?" Amy asked worriedly as Cream shook her head as Amy gave her a look. "C'mon, tell me."

"Fine." she sighed. "It's just that, I wish that I could talk him." she admitted, rubbing her biceps as Amy folded her lips. If there was anything about her, it was that she was bold. She may been wrong about things, but she never showed it to anyone, even though it was right in front of her and she was going to get Cream to talk to him. She had been gone for so long and she promised Vanilla that no matter what, Cream would have a nice life. Better than her mother's, better than hers.

"C'mon." Amy said, getting up and adjusting her skater dress as Cream looked at her confused before Amy smirked "you're going to talk to him."

"But—"

"But _nothing_." Amy cut off, not allowing any objections as she brought her hand out as Cream accepted it, a hint of excitement and nervousness in her caramel eyes as Amy walked away from the bleachers as towards the car.

"Amy, I don't think so. Besides, all of those other girls seem to drag his attention." Cream sighed as Amy huffed. She clearly didn't remember Amy Rose. The determined girl who helped anyone with their problems no matter what.

"You're attractive. You'd drag his attention." Amy winked as Cream raised an eyebrow.

"I think it's the other way around." Cream admitted smugly as Amy looked at the rabbit before chuckling a bit before hearing

"Amy?"

Amy's ear perked, before looking up and seeing a familiar blue hedgehog with a small grin. Amy's lips curled up into a small smile. She didn't expect the guy that she met at the bar to be the blue speedster. But at least now, she understood the term _blue_ speedster. Amy noticed as Cream looked at the both of them, surprised that the two knew each other as Sonic walked closer to the two, Cream holding Amy's hand as tightly as possible.

"He's _more_ attractive up close." Cream whispered as Amy smirked at the little bunny before turning back to the blue hedgehog.

"I'm surprised you remembered my name." she cocked, before a grin appeared on his face. "I wasn't planning on forgetting it."

Cream tugged Amy's dress rapidly as she realised that it was probably a sign saying _'He's freakin' hitting on you_.' Amy smiled a bit before realising what the main reason why she was here.

"This is my friend, Cream." Amy introduced as she watched Sonic glance at the bunny. "She's a _huge_ fan." Amy smiled as Sonic gave her a wink, before Amy watched the cream bunny blush furiously.

"So anyway, _Amy_ , how about I take you to that East Forest restaurant and get to know you a little?" Sonic offered as Amy raised an eyebrow before looking at Cream who was nodding rapidly before turning back to the blue hedgehog. He was quite the charmer and luckily, most of the _fan girls_ had gone away considering that they saw him only talking to her. There was no doubt that she hadn't wanted to get to know him better, and no doubt that he was probably _the_ most attractive guy that she had ever met in her life.

"That sounds nice." Amy shrugged, holding in her excitement as Sonic grinned before looking at Cream.

"And how about I take you for a ride?" Sonic grinned at her as Cream nodded, probably too lost for words as Sonic smiled before walking over to his car.

"Amy, if you two start dating, better name of one your kids after me." Cream whispered as Amy flushed before the two of them walked over to Sonic's car.

 **~xxx~**

"That was nice coffee." Shadow admitted as Tikal smiled at him. He wasn't much of an open person, she could tell, but she understood. Not everyone was willing to share things and they had only met for a day, she wasn't expecting him to trust her so suddenly but there was something about him that made her want to know him more. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't open up that much and he wanted to change that or simply the fact that his crimson eyes drew her in like a metal to a magnet but either way, something about her felt drawn to him, and she liked it. There was a tiny part of her that was scared, scared that what was happened with _him_ could happen with Shadow, but during this coffee, everything seemed to have changed, _he_ wasn't on her mind like she expected to and she liked it. She liked that _he_ could escape her mind and it was good that way. She watched Shadow look at his watch before sighing.

"I should go back to the office. I'm suppose to have a meeting." He sighed as Tikal nodded about to follow him but he stopped her, holding her hand as she looked at him. He looked at their hands, before sliding his hand off awkwardly as Tikal ignored the hurt feeling in her chest.

"You can start on Monday. No one wants to start their new job on Friday." Shadow reassured as Tikal smiled, ignoring the little awkward moment that happened between them a few moments ago.

"Thank you." She smiled as Shadow nodded, before walking into his office as Tikal sighed before walking back to her apartment. She should be happy, she had a job, she was fitting in but the awkward moment with him was in her mind, why didn't he want to hold her hand? Was she _that_ bad? There was pain in her heart as she sighed, before walking towards the apartment. She felt her shoulders brushed past through someone before turning around to apologise, only to see the last person that she expected.

His blue eyes, just like hers, looked at her as his red dreadlocks had grey in them, showing his old age, although his eyes still widened like they did before she left when he was shocked or angry. She wasn't sure which one he was right now, but she sure knew that she was terrified.

"Tikal?" he asked, his voice was filled with shock with gave Tikal a wave of relief but didn't secure her completely yet.

"Dad." She said, a small smile appearing on her face. She had been terrified of this day, honestly, she hadn't expected the day to happen at all. But now that it has, she could literally feel her heart beating at a million times per second as he didn't comment as he just glanced at her, looking at her up and down.

 _Do you know what you've done to his family?_

 _How could be so irresponsible?_

 _What type of child are you?_

The harsh questions her father had told her when she had told him her news. Her only family had broken her heart on that day.

"Dad, if you hate me I—"

Her eyes swelled up as her father pulled her in for a hug quickly. She sobbed on his shoulder, thinking about everything, from the good memories to the bad, from everything that has happened that has lined her up to this moment. A moment that she thought wasn't possible.

He let go off the hug, before wiping away her tears as she gave him a soft smile. "I don't hate you. I could _never_ hate you. What I did was wrong and selfish and I'm sorry, can you forgive me?" He asked as Tikal nodded, before being pulled into another hug. She didn't expect the moment to be like this, just like she wanted to be. She smiled, before letting go, more tears formed on her eyes.

"I gave her up." She admitted as her dad's bushy eyebrows raised with confusion. "The baby, I gave her up, I couldn't take care of her and I—"

"Honey, _it's okay_. You did the right thing. You weren't ready and you gave her to some one who was." He cut off as she nodded, knowing that he was right. She wasn't ready and she was glad that her child was with a family who was _ready_. If only there was a way that she could see her one more time, just to make sure that she's okay.

"I have a question to ask about the baby." Her father said, as Tikal's cobalt eyes that she had inherited from him widened before he sighed.

"Was the baby Thrash's?" he asked as Tikal bit her lip.

 **~xxx~**

 **AND WELCOME TO THE END OF CHAPTER THREE. Okay, so it's not** ** _that_** **long but a lot of things did happen, didn't they? Honestly, I'm not too proud of this chapter because I did write it a different way but I forgot to save it. [stupid] so I had to** ** _re-write_** **it. I was planning to publish this yesterday but at least I publish it!**

 **I decided to make Rouge an actress. Her story will come soon; I just gave an introduction to the character. And as you can clearly see, her and Knuckles had something, what? [although, it's** ** _very_** **obvious.]**

 **Nothing bad happened between Knuckles and Shade, honestly, however, if you all noticed that I put** ** _Julie_** **in the story as well, then you all have guessed that I put** ** _three_** **of Knuckles' love interests in the story. [ha, ha, I'm evil]**

 **What happened between Vanilla and Cream's father? Honestly, I'd probably start making Cream and Sally main characters soon or later so expect one of their POV soon.**

 **Was the baby Thrash's? What was Thrash to Tikal?**

 **Next time on Time**

 **We find out the baby daddy?**

 **We meet the Babylon Rogues [yeah, I'm adding them in the story ;)]**

 **We view someone's past**

 **And a special guest returns to Station Square who?**

 **All these next time on Time [okay, I need a synonym for time! -_-]**

 **PEACE OUT!**


	4. 04

**WOOO!** **I'm back! I've been battling if I should keep this story or not but I realise that I actually** ** _really_** **like it and will continue writing! With school being back and all, I don't have as much time to write as I wish I did but I have time now so, welcome to chapter four of Time! I will update wanderlust soon as well but enjoy this chapter!**

 **~xxx~**

 **warning: strong use of swearing and alcohol, forms of abuse and emotional stories. If you're uncomfortable please skip and move on to the next chapter**

 **~xxx~**

 **4 | twisted**

 **TIKAL** froze at her father's question as she bit her lip. It was obvious to _him_ that Thrash was the father, considering that he was the last guy that he saw Tikal last date. He was the father, but she couldn't tell him that. There was a part of her that still wanted to defend him even after what he did to her. Even though he had treated her like an object and not a living thing, she knew that deep down inside, he was broken, just like she was. She knew her father, even though he had been acting nice and sweet towards her, Thrash was _not_ his favourite person. He was never any's really. It was easy for people to believe that she was forced into the relationship but she wasn't. She chose to be with him, and at one moment they were in love but everything changed _that night_. That night, where she experienced something surprisingly worse than Casino Night Zone and that, she was never planning on telling her father either.

She forced a fake smile on her lips. "No, it was some guy at I met when I ran away. Don't even remember his name." she lied. Her father's face looked unfazed, probably not believing her story, to which she wasn't surprised at, considering that she wasn't exactly the best liar in the universe.

"Tikal, are you still trying to protect this boy because if you—"

"Father, trust me. I'm not." she lied again, giving him her most sure face as he glanced at her one more time, before giving her a small smile. A little pat of her was relieved that her father wasn't pressing into the issue that much, but she was mostly guilty. It was her problem and she needed to fix it, but she didn't like secrets between them. Secrets were dangerous, she had learnt that the hard way. She had learnt that there was no easy way out, even when you kept your mouth shut, someone would always be suspicious, someone would always be curious.

"How 'bout we go to the antique shop?" her father suggested as Tikal nodded quickly, a bit too quickly that her father had given her a puzzled look before he seemed to have shrugged it off as the two began walking to the antique shop. Tikal had quickly changed the topic to the antique shop asking him how it was and him saying it was good and knowing her father, was going to go on and on about it which made her smile and think about old times but the more that she watched him talk on and on, the more she talked about Shadow. She remembered the coffee, how he wasn't too willing to share that much about himself and talk about his company only—till now, she has no _idea_ what he does, but she sure does know that he makes a lot of money—but he seemed so passionate about it, just like her father was. Was there something about men and _business_ that made them so proud of everything they do? It reminded her so much of Amy and her dresses, but that was a _completely_ different story.

Her father didn't seem to be asking her too many questions, which was good mainly because she didn't want to answer them at the moment. The last thing that she needed right now was a reminder of that hotel and her father yelling at her yet again. This was their moment and nothing was wrecking it, not even Thrash, one of her worst nightmares.

 **~xxx~**

 **SHADOW** couldn't help but feel guilty about his action earlier. Should he apologise? Did she take it as a big deal? He did see a little bit of hurt in her face but quickly gave him a small smile, was it all for pity? Or did she not care about it at all? It made him sound like a woman, taking every little thing so seriously and he usually wasn't like that, he _never_ was but something about _her_ made him care. The fact that he was rabbling on about business—he tended to do that _a lot_ —but she didn't seem to care. In fact, at one point she was interested and unlike most people, didn't care about the stupid feud that was going on between him and Scourge, she seemed interested in _him_ only. He had never met anyone like that, he had never met anyone, known them for just two days and yet, feel so connected to them. Why couldn't he stop thinking about her? Did he _care_ for her?

 _No, the last time you cared for a beautiful girl, it bit you in the ass._

He bit his lip, trying not think of _her._ Luckily, the sound of knocking on his door drove him out of his thoughts as he glanced at the door, as he _jumped_ out his chair, only to see the only Scourge the Hedgehog. His first instinct was to check the window, for the likes of Breezie who liked to snoop around places that she shouldn't but he couldn't care about that. The only thing that he could think of was why the hell Scourge the Hedgehog was in his office, his _headquarters_ and why he had his stupid usual smug smile on his face.

"Scourge." he hissed, trying not to show that there was a tiny bit of fear that was in his voice to be evident. The green hedgehog had his usual smug grin, and he knew that grin. He had that grin either when he successful _scored_ a girl or won something like a football match. But he knew that this grin meant that he knew something that he didn't, which was _not_ what he was looking forward to.

"You know, when best friends haven't seen each other in a long time they hug." Scourge started off coyly before taking a seat in front of him as the crimson hedgehog gave him a death stare "Relax, I'm here to talk business."

"What makes you think that _I_ want to talk business with _you_?" Shadow retorted as the sap green hedgehog placed his hand on his heart, showing his fake hurt. "Wow, I thought we were best friends man. But yeah, we're not. Because of _you_."

"It wasn't because of me and you know it." Shadow fought back.

"Oh bit me. It doesn't matter, because I'm not here to be girls and talk about our _fucking_ friendship, I'm simply here to make a proposal." Scourge settled as the black and crimson hedgehog raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not _gay_ if that's what you're referring." Shadow muttered as he watched Scourge roll his blue eyes. "I'm not a _fag_ for your information. You and I both know that, and even if I was, _you_ will _never_ be my type."

"I want to say that hurt but then again, I don't really give a _fuck_." Shadow smiled snidely as the sap green hedgehog smiled.

"Anyway, I just came here to settle the feud between us by offering a partnership." Scourge suggested as Shadow raised an eyebrow.

A _partnership_? With his _ex-best friend?_ He didn't have to have gone to school to know that was probably the worst idea invented in Mobius, especially with a guy like Scourge, sure, it will keep him out of Breezie's hair for a while and allow people to mind their _damn_ business about his business but at the same time, sharing everything with Scourge? Having to go through ideas with Scourge first before applying them seemed risky. Very risky. So why would he propose to his idea? Why would he _want_ to work with him when the last time he saw the hedgehog, he wanted _nothing_ to do with him want to make a partnership?

"I know, you're surprised considering the last time we spoke to each other, I told you to burn in hell." Scourge continued. "But that was in the past. We've all grown up. Did you think that you were going to have a successful business? No. Did I? No. But look at us now. Two rivalry businesses and what is better than a rival business working together?"

"Nothing. Because rival businesses _don't_ work together. It as simple as day. Now, what do you _really_ want?" Shadow interrogated as the sap green hedgehog scoffed.

"What are you—"

"I'm not stupid. You don't do this because you want to. You do this to get something out of it, to be the bigger man and to make the other person feel inferior." Shadow insisted as the sap green hedgehog lightly scoffed before looking at the hedgehog's crimson eyes. Shadow couldn't tell what the sap green hedgehog had in mind, in fact, as cocky and proud of himself as he was sometimes, he never understood Scourge the Hedgehog. Even in their friendship, Scourge seemed secretive as well as him. Sure, he opened to him about his childhood but nothing of his childhood seemed to effect him did it? Then again, Scourge was a pretty good liar, he didn't even know if what the hedgehog had told him all those years ago was true. For all he knew, he could have had a perfect life, but the desperation to have a friend kept the thought for every turning out to be a question.

"It's adorable how you try and _beat_ me at my own game." Scourge started before a sly smirk appeared on his face "but just remember that it's _my_ game. And I know every single rule of it."

He opened his jacket which resulted in Shadow opening his drawer before Scourge scoffed. "Relax, it's a paper on the partnership, not a gun. If I wanted to shoot you, I would have done it a long time ago." Throwing the document on the desk, the hedgehog glared at it before Scourge smiled snidely.

"You have a week. See you later, _pal._ " he grinned before walking away from the hedgehog, leaving Shadow the Hedgehog alone with his thoughts

 **~xxx~**

 _"_ _Dad?" the young lavender cat called as she entered the house. Dropping the groceries, she looked around the apartment, looking everywhere for her father. He was the only highlight of coming back home. The only one who bothered asking her about her day or playing with her after school or even giving her friendly smiles like he did actually love her but the sound of silence made her realise that her worst enemy was in the house._

 _"_ _Ugh, you little wretch!" she heard someone hiss before gulping. Her mother was like the villain in every story. Always hated the child for some reason, even though she gave birth to her. Why? Why was she hated? she didn't do anything did she? She was always trying to be on her mother's side. She did the groceries, she did the laundry and the cooking and the washing up while her mother would just relax and hate her. Hate her for being the good person, hate her for loving her even though she had every reason not to, she was her mother and no matter how evil she was. And what was worse than her mother being evil daily was her mother being evil while under the use of alcohol._

 _"_ _Mum—why are you—?"_

 _"_ _Oh fuck off! Two seconds ago, you were looking for your stupid ass father and know you're pretending to care about me." She cut off harshly before talking a harsh gulp from the alcoholic bottle as the alcohol was water and she was dying on a deserted island._

 _"Mum, please stop this, you're not—"_

 _The sound of the alcohol shattering made the poor eleven-year-old scream, before touching her face to realise that there was a scratch by it. She glanced at the purple cat in front of her, who was giving her the coldest stare possible. It was as if she was trying to kill her with her evil stare and she was surprised at how it was_ _ **not**_ _working. She wanted to sink into the ground and stay there forever. Where was her father? Why wasn't he here today? Why was her mother trying to hurt her? What was wrong with her? Was she a bad daughter? Did everything she thought was right, wrong?_

 _"_ _Listen you little bitch. In my house, they are certain rules. And one of them is to_ _ **not**_ _tell me what to do. Because if you do, I swear that the side of your cheek wouldn't be the only one that will cut." She threatened as Blaze nodded, trying her best not for tears to fall out. She wasn't a weak girl, she was strong. She wasn't going to let her mother's horrible words be the death of her. As long as she had her father, everything was going to be okay._

 _She glared at the frightened child before a smirk held on her face. "Oh, if you're looking for your father, he left. Left with his little whore. Your perfect father preferred a whore over you, his own daughter. His little bundle of love. Just a reminder that I'm not that bad after all." she grinned wickedly before walking away from the child, whose strong walls broke down into a river of tears_

 **~xxx~**

 **BLAZE** touched the side of her cheek as she applied her blush for the day. That day was the last day she cried, considering that her mother didn't really care for her that much anymore, only to verbally abuse her and she learnt to accept it. Her mother was never going to love her, she was a girl who was hated by her mother, the woman who gave birth to her, the woman that was supposed to see joy and kindness in her daughter's eyes but instead saw nothing but evil and no, she was going to cry about it or try and make her mother love her. It was one of those things that she just had to accept in her life. But what worried her the most was her father.

Did he really leave her for some whore? Make her suffer in that house just because _he_ didn't want to be with her anymore? Why didn't he take her with him? They had always talked about going on vacation together. Taking a break and seeing the world in its beautiful ways but all that shattered that day. That day when she knew that no one in her family loved her and she had to make a new one completely. That she knew that even though she had the best friends possible and were always going to be there for her no matter what, there was always going to be that tiny thought of it she _did_ have a family who loved her. She sighed, before finishing the rest of her make-up and heading out of the apartment.

All of her friends had seemed busy with their lives apart from her, which sucked really. The first start was really to get a normal job. But what could she do? She had no experience in the sciences, there was _no_ way that she was going to be a secretary or house cleaner, she would have at least thought that after the second world war, feminism would have gone up in _some_ form of level and she wouldn't have to downcast herself back to those jobs. She sighed before going towards an alley on the road which a bunch of flyers. Sadly, most of them were about being _the new 50s flapper_ and all women knew that meant working as a whore and _no one_ was in the mood for that. She glanced at one of the flyers, saying ' **Help the children, bring education!'**

Kids were not one of Blaze's strong suits she had to admit. Sure, she was nice and kid to them when necessary but that didn't mean that she didn't get mad at them when necessary as well. Her and Amy's anger was the same, it was _not_ meant to be tested. Although Amy had a calmer way of reacting to things that her, it still didn't mean that she didn't use her rage and flare of anger at times. But then, she liked the idea of teaching children her way of life. She wasn't going to be one of those boring teachers that just pile information into the students' head and all, she wanted to teach more. Teach them things that she never got to learn from her parents and damn it, she was going to be the best at it.

She grabbed the flyer before starting the journey towards the school only for her to bump into someone as she fell on the ground dropping the flyer as well. She cursed before glancing at the person she bumped into only for to see the white hedgehog that she had seen in the bar on the first day that she got back. His golden eyes like hers widened at the sight of her before rushing over to her.

"You alright?" he asked as Blaze glanced at him. She had gotten over what he had said at the bar the other day, considering that he was one of the only guys that she had meant who had _actually_ said an apology after offending a woman.

"Yeah, I'm fine." she muttered as she glanced at the hedgehog's hand. Normally, she'd refuse, considering that she doesn't like being help in the most pitiful of ways but something in his golden eyes sparked a lot amount of sincerity and wiliness that she could just not say no to. Sighing, she grabbed the hedgehog's hand as he helped her up, giving her a small smile.

"I'm still really sorry about what I said at the bar that day, that was really stupid of me and—"

"Honestly, don't worry about it. They've been worse." Blaze reassured as she watched the silver hedgehog cock an eyebrow, as if wanting to ask her more questions but in fact, asked her nothing. Why? Most people she knew were always curious, why wasn't he?

"Well, then. I guess we're cool Blaze." he smiled as the fact that he remembered her name made her eyes widened. Why was he so _different_? Why did he care so much about an event that happened a few days ago? Why did give her such friendly smiles when she almost tried to _kill_ him at the bat that time?

"You remembered my—"

"Well, it's kind of hard to forget the name of the girl who did almost kill me." He admitted before a sheepish grin went on his face "and also your name's too original to forget."

She couldn't help but smile at that herself. Her name was too original to be forgotten? That was probably the best compliment that anyone had given her, she wasn't used to it. She wasn't used to feeling so loved. Sure, she was loved by her friends and her father but her father left her, maybe for a whore or maybe just because he was tiring of loving her but to have someone that she had only known for a day, it was nice and weird to feel so appreciated.

She had realised that she hadn't said anything in a while, considering that he had given her a small smile before starting to walk away.

"Wait!" she called as he turned around, his golden eyes filled with curiosity as she picked up the flyer. "You know where Emerald Academy is?"

"Lucky for you, I work there." he replied as for what seemed to be the first time in her life, she genuinely smiled at someone new.

 **~xxx~**

 **AMY** sighed as her date politely excused himself to bathroom. Okay, he wasn't her _date_ and they were _not_ a date. It was simply two people getting to know each other better. Nothing more and nothing less. Luckily, Sonic had offered to drop the young rabbit home after a joy ride and a little teasing of the two in which Amy scolded her to stop. The date—the getting to know each other lunch to be more exact—seemed to be going well perfectly. The blue hedgehog wasn't like most guys that she had meant in her life. He was the complete opposite of _him_ but she was scared at the same time. What if this was all an act? Does he do this with all of his fan girls? Was she just an object? She didn't want to feel anything that she was going to regret later but was she feeling something at all? That she wasn't so sure.

"Well, look at who it is." Someone commented snidely as Amy's eyes widened. _No, no, anyone but_ _ **him.**_

The pink hedgehog gulped before turning around to see Jet the Hawk, his cold blue eyes looked at her wickedly as a grin appeared on his face. As usual, Wave was beside him, expect this time they were a lot closer than she expected them to be, considering that they were holding hands now. The pink hedgehog bit her lip, realising Wave had finally gotten what she wanted, a chance with Jet. Strom was beside Wave, looking as buff and scary as ever. Nothing about him or them had changed over the years.

"Go away." Amy hissed as Jet smirked. "Looks like someone is a big girl now." he teased as Wave glared at her before glaring at the seat in front of her before an evil smirk appeared on her lips.

"Stood up? Not like I can blame the guy." Wave smirked as Amy glared at the swallow. "Bathroom actually."

"You sure he didn't climb out the window?" she teased wickedly.

"Nah, I'm pretty sure he didn't." Sonic cocked as a hopeful smile rested on Amy's face. She watched as Jet's smirk turned into a face of horror. "Well if it isn't the Blue Speedster."

Amy gulped. _They know each other? This is bad, this is so very bad. Jet wouldn't hurt him right?_

She knew Jet, he liked to be number one. Nothing more and nothing less. And he did _everything_ in his power to get it. even though it means the demise of others.

"Jet." Sonic spat, making Amy realise that maybe she wasn't the only with a bad history with the famous hawk. "You mind leaving the girl alone? She's with me."

"I think you should go. Considering that she prefers me."

"No, I don't. We're in the past, Jet. _Forgotten_." Amy retorted as Jet smirked before looking into her eyes. His cold blue evil eyes were looking at her jades and it made her feel sick. She couldn't believe that she used to like looking into those. She was stupid into thinking that she could change Jet's selfish and horrible ways.

"Really? You think I can forget you, Amy? After all those times together, you really think that you'd be gone in the wind just like that?" Jet questioned as Amy blinked, before giving a quick glance at Wave, there were obvious signs that the poor swallow was jealous, not like she could blame her, her boyfriend was flirting with her ex. Amy glanced at the hawk before giving him a slap and getting out of her seat before facing the blue hedgehog. "You want to go?" she asked as Sonic smiled.

"Yeah sure." he smiled before glancing at the hawk with a proud smirk. "See you in a month, _hawk_." he hissed before flashing a wink as Amy dashed the hawk a cold stare.

 **~xxx~**

 **"** **WE USED TO DATE."** Was the first thing that had come out of Amy's mouth as Sonic clicked his tongue. He was jealous, of course, but he wasn't going to admit that. Why admit jealously over a girl that he had just met in a day? But something about her felt _different_. He wanted to protect her, especially from the likes of Jet and especially the fact that they used to _date_. Sonic glanced at the pink hedgehog as she fiddling with her thumbs and bit her lip. Was she going to cry? He really hoped not. He hated when girls cry, especially beautiful girls like her.

"Oh." Sonic let out as Amy let out a dark chuckle. " _Oh?_ You obviously have more than that."

"I didn't mean like—"

"It's fine." she cut off with a sweet giggle that sounded like music to his ears, making him smile. "When I was sixteen, life at home wasn't so good. I was tired of everything and Jet, well, he showed me this whole entire world. It sounds so cliché and dumb I know, but everything with him made me feel so alive until I found out, he had a girlfriend. And it was all a stupid bet to see if I was going to fall for him."

Sonic glanced at the pink hedgehog after her story. She was affected by Jet too, but in a worse way. He broke her heart, her poor teenage heart. And he wasn't going to get away with it. He was going to beat Jet at that tournament, no matter what. He had to do it, for his dad and for her. Jet had hurt them in places that were too far to be replaced and someone needed to teach that jerk a lesson.

"Jet shot my dad." Sonic admitted as Amy turned to him. He normally didn't tell people he met a day ago but his life but with her, it felt _safe_. Maybe it was because of the way her jade eyes were glistening in the moonlight or how her tiny smiles made his heartbeat a million times per second, but she affected him and he liked it. Her eyes looked worriedly as Sonic parked the car by the side of the road, luckily it was by a grassy field so no one was around them. He sighed as Amy looked at him sincerely before he felt a grip on his hand. He looked down before turning to her as she had a tiny smile on her face.

He sighed. "My dad's in the army. Barely saw him as a kid. My mum would tell my siblings and I great stories about what he did in the war and Manic would always ask 'where is he now?' and Mum would always say that he's coming back soon. One day, he actually came back for the weekend. Manic and I bothered him with so many questions about the army and Sonia told him so much about what happened at at. At that time, Jet and I were friends. I told him about how my dad served in the army and he talked about how his dad died in it. I didn't know that my dad was in charge of him so when I invited him over—"

"He shot him didn't he?" Amy completed before a sad sigh escaped her lips. "the whole friendship was a way for him to get back for his dad?"

"Yeah. He survived though, but I haven't seen in a while. My mum keeps telling to go but I just can't. I just—"

"You think he hates you don't you?" Amy connected as Sonic nodded. Sonic was not the emotional type. He hid it all under the ego of the Blue Speedster but in reality he was as weak as ever. He was scared of the world, scared of seeing his own blood because of something so petty. If he hadn't friended Jet, if he had known that Jet was faking, would everything be different? Would his father not have to stay in the hospital for months until they were sure he could be in the army again.

"I'm sorry about your dad." Amy apologised as Sonic smiled. "I'm sorry about your heart. You deserve the best."

Sonic looked at her, before looking down at her lips and looking at her again. _Bad idea, she just saw her ex-boyfriend who is by the way, you're arch-enemy._ But he noticed that she did the same thing as well. Did she want to kiss him? Because chaos knows that he wanted to kiss the daily life out of her.

Sonic coughed awkwardly before stating "it's starting to get a bit dark." He glanced at her, realising that there was a little hurt in her face. _Dammit, didn't want to hurt her._

"But how 'bout tomorrow?" he offered as a small smile appeared on her face. "Seems good."

He grinned like a child getting the new toy that he always wanted

 **~xxx~**

 **ROUGE'S EYES** squinted more at the presence of the sun. _Gee, what a wonderful way to wake up when you're hung-over off your ass._ Rouge glanced to her side, seeing the orange porcupine sleeping beside her. Yes, it was said for her to sleep with a taxi-driver when she had just gotten by and all but she couldn't blame herself. After her little encounter with Knuckles, the last thing that she wanted to think about was that stupid echidna. That stupid echidna that had gotten into her head and made her think things that weren't possible seem possible. That stupid echidna that had filled her which so much hope.

 _Stupid echidna._

She sighed before glancing at the sleeping man before getting out of bed. She really hoped that shooing him out of her apartment would be easy and he wouldn't freak out over the fact that she slept with him although she knew something that worked every time for the creepy guys that she slept with. She wore her housecoat before walking towards her living room only to see Sally Acorn sitting on her couch. Her eyes widened at the chipmunk in a blue collar dress and black heels, her lips covered with dark purple lipstick and her make-up done perfect while drinking a cup of coffee.

"Oh you're up. I was really hoping not to get into your room." she said, her voice filled with relief before a cocked eyebrow appeared in her expression. "Who's _that_ fellow?" Confused, the ivory bat turned around only to see the orange porcupine dressed with a nice smirk on his face.

"Last night was fun." he grinned as Rouge scoffed. "Not really. Even though I was partly drunk, you were still kind of bland." she admitted truthfully.

"Nice meeting you Steven." she smiled as the porcupine frowned. "It's Spike." Rouge shrugged as the porcupine walked out of the apartment as the bat turned to Sally as the chipmunk folded her lips. "Well, I really don't want to know _that_ was about." she admitted as Rouge bit her lip.

"Drunk night. I don't usually do this and—"

"I don't want pity apologies. You want the role of Adeline in my movie correct?" she cut off as Rouge had a smirk on her face. She wasn't like most directors who she had to squeeze and beg for roles, she gave roles due to hard work and effort and surprisingly, Rouge liked that.

"Correct. But may I ask, _why_ are you in my apartment today. It's like the last day of October." Rouge admitted as Sally nodded.

"I know, I like visiting my actresses or actors for roles beforehand, it gives me an idea of what I'd be expecting." she explained. "But then again, you're very different."

"I take that as a compliment." Rouge said bashfully as Sally cocked an eyebrow. "How do know I was saying it as a compliment?"

"I don't. I'm just taking it as one." Rouge stated proudly as Sally raised an eyebrow before a small smile appeared on her face. "Razor was right, you're not like most people. I like that. I guess I'd see on Friday." Sally admitted, a grin on her face before she walked towards the door.

"Oh, by the way, don't blame Razor for not telling you about this, I don't like people _faking_ what they were really doing." she admitted before walking out of Rouge's apartment and for the first time in her life, was left speechless.

 **~xxx~**

 **"** **MISS FOX** , it's an honour to have you back." The bright green bird smiled as the vixen rolled her eyes. How she was _not_ in the mood for her pity workers again. Sure, she didn't mind people bowing down to her and respecting her but today was just not her day. The only good thing about being back in this wretched city was to play with her favourite toys. It did get a little boring pretending that her career was over, but she did need a distraction to come up with her plan and she did, and boy was she ready.

"Of course it is." Fiona stated proudly before smiling. "I've got a surprise for you Bean." she smiled as Bean cocked his eyebrow. Maybe it was because he had worked for Fiona Fox for a long time, but he knew that surprises and things were only meant for _her_. Not for her workers.

"You don't have to work for me anymore. I've found someone else." she grinned as Bean frowned. "How is _that_ good news?"

"I never said good news, all I said was a _surprise_ , surprises aren't always good you know." Fiona shrugged as she watched the little green bird fume while smirking. She was enjoying this, enjoying it a lot. She loved toying with people, breaking them up to their maximum point, it was what she liked to do best and after hearing that all of her little toys are back here, getting their life back together, what a better idea than ruining their life now?

"Alright, now get out of my face, will ya? You're lucky the new guy I had hasn't made you into little speck." Fiona ordered as she watched Bean frown before saying "you will regret this, trust me." Fiona smirked proudly before watching the bird leave, satisfaction held in her face before sitting down on her favourite chair. "Wow, boy is it good to be back!"

"Fiona, I don't get why we're here." Eclipse hissed as Fiona rolled her eyes at the darkling. _Gosh, he's such a bore_. A smirk came her lips as she decided to have a little fun with the guy. He wasn't ugly, but he wasn't as attractive as his brother but he'd do. She needed a little fun, without anyone knowing that she was back yet. She liked to make a scene with that, make the whole world know that Fiona Fox, is alive and back.

"Because silly, the plan doesn't start until tomorrow, besides." she started before walking up to the darkling and playing with his tie. "There are much more _fun_ things we can do today." she offered sexually, her eyes lowered to emphasize a lust as Eclipse grabbed both of her hands.

"Not interested." He said sternly, his gold eyes still as she smirked. " _Yet_." she teased as she loosed from his grip.

"Besides, I at least want to give your precious brother and my ex-boyfriend a moment of freedom, before they realise that they can't get rid of me that easily." she settled as her mouth formed an evil grin.

 **~xxx~**

 **WOHO! Okay, it has been about a billion years since I updated this story but I've finally updated it! Yeah! I will try my hardest to update stories on weekends but I will not make a large amount of promises**

 **So;**

 **We kind of know Amy and Sonic's history with Jet and we all now know that Jet is an asshole that we all wish should go get a life and become a better person**

 **Scourge wants a partnership? What the heck? Will Shadow sign it? Or will the fact that Fiona, Eclipse and Mephiles around affect that?**

 **BLAZE! *crying emoji* yes, Blaze had the worst mother in the universe, but what happened to her father? Is her mother alive? Why did her father leave?**

 **SONAMY MOMENT… ish**

 **Will Tikal ever tell her father the truth about Thrash?**

 **Next on Time**

 **COUPLES WILL HAVE MOMENTS**

 **Rouge's audition and Rouge vs Julie-Su**

 **FIONA COMES BACK TO THE BOYS LIFE**

 **A GLIMPSE INTO SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG'S PAST**

 **SEE Y'ALL NEXT TIME ON TIME [seriously, does anyone have like a synonym or something?]**


	5. 05

**HI GUYS!** **I realised that I should actually just keep this story instead because they have been some positive looking reviews and the favs and follows have been increasing so TYSM guys and SOOO sorry for making other stories and threatening to delete Time and all. At first, I thought that this story wasn't that good but I decided since they were a large amount of reviews and favs and follows compared to my other story, I should continue this, so THANK YOU ALL FOR THE SUPPORT :^) and hope you all enjoy this chapter!**

 **~xxx~**

 **WARNING; SOME FORMS OF HOMOPHOBIA [PLEASE SKIP TO THE NEXT CHAPTER IF UNCOMFORTABLE]**

 **~xxx~**

 **5 | complicated [part one]**

 **FIONA** groaned in annoyance as she stared at her glass of bourbon. She was _bored_. _Extremely_ bored and she hated that. She wasn't the type of lady who normally had _patience_. She was impulsive, many people claimed that to a _bad_ trait but she claimed it as her best one. She liked acting without thinking, it made her life way more interesting than people who thought of the _consequences_ first. Of course, that didn't mean that she was _stupid_ and never thought of herself having consequences when she did do said impulsive acts. Most of the time, she was just lucky. Just like now, she was out on the patio, staring at her glass of bourbon, surprised that the likes of Breezie's photographers haven't bombarded her house to get pictures of _Fiona Fox back in action!_

Eclipse claimed that she needed to lay low for a while before commencing on their plan, which was the complete opposite of Fiona Fox. She knew her little toys, no matter how much they claimed that they didn't care about her, she knew their weak spots. She knew that Shadow had fallen in love with her after just a few months of sleeping together while she was still with Scourge. She knew that while Scourge acted all macho and cocky as _fuck_ , she was the only one who could bring out a sweet—well decent—side of the hedgehog and because of her, it was probably burnt forever. She wasn't going to lie, there was a tiny part that did feel a little guilty about ending a bromance but it wasn't her fault that the two of them were willing to risk a friendship over her, not like she could blame them.

She drank her glass of bourbon, before walking back into her apartment and seeing the daily newspaper on the floor by her beige painted door. The fox walked over, curious at what was going on in Station Square today, only to see.

 ** _Sally Acorn new film auditions today! Rouge the Bat versus Julie-Su; who would win?_**

Of course, she was furious at the sight of this. Sure, watching two enemies battle over a role was fun, but she _wasn't_ there to see it all happen. She couldn't even help with the commotion and worst of all, she wasn't even _offered_. Yes, she had gone over the face of the earth, many people thought she was _doomed_ and she wasn't. And the fact that she had made up a story to Rouge so she could hear why _she_ had disappeared from the film industry and yet was working with one of the most famous _female_ directions of all time was something to be very _annoyed_ about.

But that all had to come later, sadly. She wasn't really expecting this in her plan and now that it's come out, she just had to fit it in somewhere. But she at least wanted to play with her little toys first. Nothing was going to be interfering with her plans for that obviously.

"No one takes bourbon at seven in the morning." someone criticised as Fiona rolled her eyes, knowing that voice as she turned around to see Eclipse, his eyes judging her choices, as usual. The only reason that she had teamed up with him was because he wanted revenge on Shadow for some _secret reason that he wouldn't tell her thinking that she's not going to find out with having to ask him._

"Well, you're not a doctor are you?" Fiona hissed as Eclipse raised an eyebrow. "Actually I am."

"Well, you're not _my_ doctor. Just because we both want to ruin your brother's life doesn't mean you get to judge what I do." Fiona scoffed as Eclipse rolled his eyes. At this moment, she had actually missed Bean a bit. At least Bean didn't criticise her every move and actually just listened and did what she said.

"Sorry." he muttered, obviously not meaning it as she rolled her eyes, not wanting to care about it anymore. As long as she gets her fun, she didn't really need him. In fact, she only needed him to get to Shadow, after that, he was pretty worthless. And she was pretty sure that he was gay, considering that he wasn't sexually attracted to her _whatsoever_

"He has a business." Eclipse commented as Fiona cocked an eyebrow. This was an interesting piece of information, considering the last time that she saw him, he was just working in a factory and she was doing a few Broadway musicals.

"Does he?" she asked, an evil glint in her eye becoming more and more present.

"They both do. Apparently, they're in completion but word spread round that Scourge wanted a partnership." Eclipse continued as Fiona nodded. This was really useful information and information that she could play with. She still had the information on Rouge, oh that was a _big_ one. It was hard to get out of the bat, but making her drunk enough to spill and telling her _reason_ for leaving while half drunk was good enough for her.

"Partnership huh? This is going to be _real_ fun." she grinned.

 **~xxx~**

 ** _Hey there,_**

 ** _A lot of things have happened now that I've come back to town. There's the fact that Mari-An left Rob for a reason that I don't know anything about. It couldn't have been because of me, could it? If it was, I wouldn't be surprised. Their feelings towards me being in that house was not very mutual and not very subtle either. But anyway, there's also this guy. I pictured hating guys after the Casino Night Zone incident and everything with Jet (that dirty scumbag who I also saw yesterday, UGH!) but there's Sonic. I don't know how to feel about him. He's mighty attractive, oh chaos, he's VERY attractive and sweet and possibly everything that I've wanted in a guy since I started to understand the power of love._**

 ** _But is it too soon for a relationship? I feel like I can tell him anything and trust him with all my secrets without me worrying about him judging me in any form of way but I've only known him for a week! A week! Yet, I feel so good around him? Do I love him? Do I want to be with him? And there is the fact that we almost kissed! WE ALMOST KISSED! And we're supposed to meant up today and maybe act like everything is normal. What if he didn't want to kiss me? BUT HE LEANED IN FIRST, UGH! I thought I would be passed this feelings stage already but it seemed worse than being a teen._**

 ** _Maybe it was because I rushed it through. Jet seemed like the one because he was the only one who seemed to be saving me from the tension at home and made me believe in this new idea of destiny. Till, you know, he was a JACKASS and told me the entire thing was nothing but a STUPID BET. UGH! And there's still Cousin Rob, out there, alone._**

 ** _I'm not going to lie, cousin Rob did care for me and helped me out and I do worry about him being all alone without Mari-An. Mari-An was his whole world, what could have happened? I presumed when I left all their problems would be solved, did I cause more problems by leaving? Was my leaving the catalyst through it all._**

The sound of the mail slot on her door opening made Amy close her pink journal, before putting back in it's usual position by her bedside table as she walked towards her door, looking at the ground before picking up the mail, looking at the left-side before seeing

 **ROB O'HEDGE**

 **APARMENT 21, SSA**

 **21** **ST** **CHAOS LANE**

 **STATION SQUARE**

Amy blinked. He's in Station Square? And how the heck did he know where she _lives_? She bit her lip, scared to read the letter. But then again, all of her problems would be solved wouldn't it? Maybe it's a letter explaining the meanness and the bitterness that she experienced in that household. Or maybe it was a letter, telling her how she was the cause of all their problems. She took a breath before opening the letter.

 **Dear Amy,**

 **It's been a long while, I know. And most of it is and will always be my fault. I didn't stick up for you when needed, I watched as you were either criticised by Mari-An or I let Mari-An get the best of me and I yelled at you, even though you were trying to do your best to help. Your parents were gone and I was your only source, yet, I let you down just as much as they had. Your father leaving you was the same thing as me not sticking out for you. I know that me writing a letter after two years without you in my life isn't going to make things better but I was hoping that maybe we could talk in my apartment? I don't have very long, considering that I only rented this apartment for a week, really stupid huh? Anyway, my address in on the letter, if you ever what to talk, I'm here.**

 **Love Rob**

Amy had to wipe away tears that she had produced after reading that letter. Was that what happened all those years? Rob lost his money? Mari-An left him and now, Amy had left him too? No, she couldn't abandon him, but at the same time, sending this letter doesn't instantly mean that she forgave him. He still didn't want her, he still yelled at her and he still _never_ took her side. Nothing, especially a _letter_ , was going to instantly remove those memories away.

The bright pink hedgehog sighed, going onto her pastel pink couch before continuing to look at the letter over and over again.

 _A visit shouldn't hurt. No matter what he did, he's still cousin and you're still going to worry about him._

"Guess that blows off seeing Sonic today." she muttered, a sad sigh escaped her lips. She really needed to talk about that moment that she had with him. To make sure that she wasn't going crazy. Cosmo had told her that she should just tell the hedgehog that she did like him but she wasn't sure _how_ she felt that was the problem. Did she like him? love him? or just love the _idea_ of him? She easily crossed the third one out considering out of all the guys she had met in her 21 years of living, she had learnt the difference between the _idea_ of someone and _someone_.

And there was still Jet, the guy that her new-guy friend-boyfriend-whatever the heck he was was going to face in a huge Station Square tournament in less than three weeks. She at least thought that maybe Sonic would be focused on that, and their special meeting would be postponed, considering that the main reason why he said was kind of _out of the awkward atmosphere of almost kissing._

"And I need to find a job, damn it!" she cursed as she picked out the newspaper by her door to glance at new jobs. She smiled at the sight of the perfect job for her, _journalism_. And what was best about it? It was a female journalism business. She smiled at the sight of **new job opportunity needed at** ** _Marine's Announcements_**. She had always loved writing and the idea of journalism, ever since she was a kid. And at least now, she was getting her dream come true.

"At least there's one good thing coming out of today." Amy muttered, a small smile appearing on her face as she got ready for the day.

 **~xxx~**

"Cosmo, look at me when I'm talking to you." Her father ordered as Cosmo did nothing but scoff. She had no idea why she even agreed to this in the first place, but here she was, talking to her alcoholic father in a diner. She was probably going to be late for her first day as a nurse but when you're on your way to work and your father pulls you by the arm to tell you that the two of you need to talk, there's no stopping that is there?

"Why? So you can throw an alcoholic bottle in my face?" Cosmo scoffed as her father frowned. Cosmo wasn't normally rude to people but to the man who caused her, her mother and her sister's torment? She had to be everything but cruel. Of course, there was still a tiny bit of her conscience that was being reminded that maybe she should forgive her father but being pulled out of the street doesn't really count as father daughter time.

"I should be treated with more respect."

"You? You should be in _jail_. You're lucky out of the kindest of my heart I sent you to a psychologist instead." Cosmo muttered as her father sighed, clearing tired of fighting with her but Cosmo was tired of fighting to. If anything, she was trying her best _not_ to burst in tears and yell at her father for all the destruction that he and his alcoholism did into her life. She was trying to be strong, something that she wasn't really the best at and maybe the help from the nightmares of Casino Night Zone had helped her.

"Look, all I want is a fresh start." He admitted as Cosmo raised an eyebrow. One of her sadly obvious traits was her naivetés. She wanted to believe him so bad, she wanted to smile and say _okay_ and everything could go into a nice family portrait picture but this was reality. She knew that all those years of drinking, cursing, coming home late and yelling were not going to be forgotten with a little sentence.

"I'm not stopping you. But I'm not going to forgive you that easily. You _drove_ mum to suicide. You made Galaxia and I cry ever night, trying our best to pray for mum to come back." Cosmo started off as her father bowed his head about to say something but she cut him off.

"And hoping that maybe you'd see what you were doing to your family. This isn't just about saying you want to start over Dad, it's about _proving_ it." Cosmo finished as her dad sighed, before letting out.

"This is probably the worst time to tell you that I met someone."

Cosmo blinked. Was that all he was here for? Just to tell her that he had met someone _other_ than her mother? Her mother, who had been driven to suicide _because of him_. Her mother, who did nothing more than love him through _all_ he did towards her and her sister. Her mother, who was there for him until she couldn't take it anymore. And now, he had moved on. And he had the dignity to smile about it.

"Oh." Cosmo let out, before biting her lip. "I should get to work." Cosmo let out before walking out of the diner as quickly as she could, tears falling out as she cursed to herself, a thing that she only did when her father was around.

He had the gut to _move on_? Sure, it wasn't like her mother was still around or anything like that but still, he couldn't just _move on_ , could he? Sure, she was probably being overdramatic about the situation. Maybe she should be happy. He seemed pretty happy when he told her, but she wasn't ready for someone new. She could barely handle losing her mother, now she was going to replace it.

She sighed, before entering the **STATION SQUARE HOSPITAL** and letting out a sigh at the sight of a very annoyed shrew, tapping his foot.

"Sorry, I had a family emergency." she apologised, her usual sweet tone in her voice as the shrew rolled his eyes, clearly not amused.

"You women and your emergencies." he muttered as Cosmo frowned, surprised at the sexist comments that were still floating in the air, even today before he sighed. "Lucky for you, no _serious_ accidents have happened, not like someone like _you_ would be able to handle blood." he rolled his eyes before handing her nurse uniform watching the shrew walk away.

 _He does know that I get periods, right?_

Cosmo sighed before walking over the bathroom and changing into her nurse uniform. Putting the little hat on her head and letting her hair down as an experiment from Amy who claimed they might be _cute doctors_ at her work office and so far, she had only meant a sexist one.

She walked out of the bathroom before walking over to see the nurse office before entering and seeing the sight of a white rabbit. She smiled, hoping to make a friend but her green eyes glared at the seedrain before she rolled her eyes at the sight of her.

"You are?" she hissed as Cosmo gulped before dashing her a friendly smile.

"I'm Cosmo, I'm new." she smiled, holding her hand out for a handshake as the girl in front of her scoffed, making Cosmo retract her hand quickly.

"Of course you are. Let me just tell you now, you are _not_ stealing my position, okay?" she warned as Cosmo nodded quickly, wishing for Amy or Blaze to appear and help her in this situation. After all, the two were always better at confrontation than she was.

"Good, now start with Room 1B." she hissed, before handing her a clipboard. She gave her one last glare, before walking away making Cosmo gulp as she walking into the room. She sighed, before glancing at the yellow fox in front of her as she raised an eyebrow.

"I know you, you're um…" she commented before glancing at the sheet awkwardly. "Miles?"

"I prefer Tails, but yeah. That's me." he grinned as Cosmo had a small smile on her face, before glancing at his leg which had a deep burn.

"What happened?" she gasped as he chuckled. "Just a little burn. Typical engineer injuries." he shrugged off.

Cosmo frowned. She knew that there was a chance that maybe he _was_ okay with it but it didn't matter, he still hurt himself whenever it generally happens or it doesn't happen.

"You should be more careful, y'know. It could have been worse." Cosmo muttered, before looking for the tepid water. After looking for what seemed to be a century, she found it. A sad sigh escaped her lips, before getting a white cloth and dashing Tails a small smile

Sadly, the yellow kitsune didn't buy it one bit. "You okay?"

"Yeah, um… bad day. Let's just move on from it." Cosmo shrugged off as Tails cocked an eyebrow.

"C'mon, talk about it. It's always better to talk about it with someone. Even though you've only seen them once at a bar." Tails suggested as Cosmo laughed, a small smile appearing on her face as she put some of the tepid water on a cloth and starting to wrap it round his leg.

"My dad met someone new today and I don't know how to feel about it." she shortened as Tails nodded. "That's a tough one."

"Yeah." Was the only thing that could escape her lips as Tails smiled sadly at the seedrain "You don't want him to move on?"

"I don't know what I want. I do know that I want you to get better." she said in a matter-of-factly tone as she watched the kitsune blush faintly making her smile.

"Uh, we kind of have to leave it for ten minutes. Just to make sure the burn's cool down." she explained as Tails nodded before a smile appeared on his voice.

"What?" she said, perplexity obvious in her voice.

"I guess it would be nice if we got to know each other a little better." Tails commented as the green seedrain had a smile on her face, probably because that was the best statement that anyone had said to her so far.

 **~xxx~**

 **"** **SONIC!"**

The strong yell from Manic made Sonic hit the brakes of his car automatically, before sighing and looking at his older brother, who clearly had a worried expression on his face. Sonic couldn't blame him, he had been driving around in circles for hours and half of it was _not_ practice. It was all about _her_. Everything was lately. Even his race. Not like he didn't like it. He hated how it was distracting him but at the same time, thinking about her was like thinking about the sunshine in a beautiful grassy field. She was peaceful, and yet, all that was probably ruined with him trying to kiss her.

 _In my defense, she DID lean in._

 _Yeah, she did one thing and that makes the whole situation thing okay_.

"Yeah?" Sonic groaned after what seemed to be years being lost in thought.

"What the _hell_ is going on? You're driving way faster than usual, you're barely at home. Sonia and I are worried about you, and where were you yesterday?" Manic asked as Sonic glanced at his brother. "Out."

"Gee, that's _specific._ " Manic witted out as Sonic rolled his eyes. "I'm being serious right now."

"And I'm _really_ not in the mood to be scolded at." Sonic spat, not really sure where his anger was really coming from.

"Just tell me what's wrong." Manic sighed, sounding more like a plead than an order as Sonic sighed.

"I don't _fucking_ know. I went out with Amy and—"

"Hold on. You were out with _Amy_? That chick you were giving eye sex?" Manic smirked as Sonic rolled his eyes playfully, trying to get on with his story.

" _Moving on_ , and we came across Jet, her ex-boyfriend funnily enough. So we left obviously and she told me about how he only dated her for a bet and I told her about dad and we almost kissed and it's all awkward now." Sonic explained as Manic nodded, taking all the information in.

"That's, wow. You know you could have told me. I mean, Sonia would have a freakin' party over the fact that you meet a nice girl and all but this sounds like a chick flick to me." Manic described as Sonic sighed. He didn't mean for things to get so dramatic with her, but now he was wondering if things would _ever_ get normal with her.

"You're still not going to visit dad?" Manic asked as Sonic glanced at his brother. "You know the answer to that."

"Sonic, it's been a _decade_. Father has never hated you before. He'd _never_. This is becoming ridiculous." Manic let out as Sonic bit his lip, letting his older brother sigh in the background. "At least visit him when you beat the hell out of that hawk huh?"

That did seem fair. But at the same time, there was still a part of him that knew that there was a chance that his father still hated him, but he knew that this was becoming ridiculous. He needed to man up and see his father already.

"Alright, fine. I promise." Sonic vowed as Manic glanced at the hedgehog before nodding.

"Good, now please come back early so Sonia doesn't have your head on a stick." Manic muttered before walking away from the chuckling hedgehog.

 **~xxx~**

 **TIKAL** may be an overall perky and positive person, but it didn't take her more than a few seconds to realise that Lien-Da was _defiantly not_ a huge fan of her. Every smile she made her direction, she dashed her a frown instead. Unlike Amy and Blaze, she wasn't good with the whole confrontation thing. She was reserved, hated seeking attention or being the main cause of drama. It's all she has always been really.

"Alright, here's your desk. Remember, you type out important notices or anything that I tell you to type up for Shadow, your boyfriend." she scoffed as Tikal blinked. Was this what it was about? Thinking that _she_ was Shadow's _girlfriend_? If anything, she was pretty convinced that the hedgehog hated her. And why would Lien-Da care about something like that? Did they have a past and she was interfering with it? She didn't mean to seem that way, but she was a curious person and Shadow intrigued her. He was like a closed book, only talking about business. Why would he open up about other stuff? Maybe something terrible happened and he wasn't ready to talk about it yet, like her really.

"He's not my—"

"Whatever you say, just get to work." Lien-Da cut off sharply, before giving the echidna a sharp glare and walking away, only the sound of her heels audible as Tikal sighed, before sitting on her desk. Unluckily there was nothing for her to do so she glanced at the black pen on her desk before she began flicking it. She at least thought that this typist job would be more interesting that this.

She sighed, glancing at her surroundings before getting up from her chair and beginning to walk around, admiring the office. She wasn't going to lie, when she was kid, she never pictured herself working as a typist. She really didn't know what she wanted to be in life really. Her mum had always told her to be with whatever life takes her to be. If only her mother knew how much her life had kicked her in the ass so far.

The sound of a groan made Tikal lose thought before glancing at the brown door that the groan had come from. Her curiosity getting the best of her, the peach echidna walked towards the door, before placing her ear on it.

 _"_ _Look, how long do I have to work here for?"_

She knew that snappy voice was Lien-Da, which made her worry. What was going on? Didn't Lien-Da like working with Shadow? Sure, they had a little complicated relationship as far as she was aware but she at least thought that there was some tiny care for her.

 _"You're here already? Finally, I was getting bored on pretending to be on his side."_

 _So whose side is she on? Scourge's?_ Reading newspapers had kept her well aware of the Scourge and Shadow rivalry when it came to business but she couldn't jump to conclusions. But she did know that Lien-Da was _defiantly_ betraying Shadow. Should she tell him? But Lien-Da could easily lie about the situation. She needed proof, physical evidence of this, _but how_?

"Tikal?" Someone called as Tikal turned around sharply, seeing the sight of Shadow in confusion. She blushed a bit, noticing how perfectly his suit fit him and his crimson eyes matched his fur and—

 _Oh no, you're not going on THAT lane_

There was not a fibre in her bone that didn't believe that the man standing in front of her right now wasn't attractive but she vowed that after Thrash and the events of Casino Night Zone, love was the last thing on her mind. But she wasn't sure _what_ this was exactly. She didn't get him. Did he want something out of her? Did he have a previous relationship with Lien-Da—but even if he did, she _didn't_ care.

"Oh, um… sorry. I know I'm supposed to be in work right now but nothing was happening and I just looked around and—"

"Not important. I need you to fill in for Lien-Da. Chaos knows where she's gone." he muttered as Tikal bit her lip.

 _Tell him!_

 _You don't have enough evidence yet, for all you know, it could be a work prank or something like that_.

"Oh… um… yeah sure." Tikal stammered before awkwardly walking away from the hedgehog. Not only the fact that they didn't talk about yesterday which was probably more awkward between them, but the guilt coming out of her for not telling Shadow what was going on added more to their awkwardness.

 **~xxx~**

 **SHADOW** sighed before walking back to his office. He was pretty sure that the Tikal girl hated his guts, which was something that he _didn't_ want. She reminded him of Maria, his sweet cousin who was like a sister to him that was sadly sent to prison for being gay, which led her to kill herself. Shadow had never forgiven his father for turning him in or Eclipse, his stupid step-brother for confessing to his father about it and overhearing the conversation between them. Eclipse had always been jealous of him, mainly because their father had ditched his mother after Eclipse was born and lied that his _own_ wife killed her.

Shadow didn't know who to hate more. His stupid brother for believing it and catalysing most of the problems in his life or his father for ruining his life and family life in general. Shadow glanced at the peach echidna who was currently smiling through a phone call, reminding him of Maria more and more.

 _Maria would have liked her_ , he thought to himself before a small smile came across his lips. He shouldn't be doing this. After all, ever since _Fiona_ , love has always been hard for him. It had always been something that he didn't believe in anymore because of her. She wrecked his idea of love, but maybe Tikal was fixing it. It wasn't a lie; the hedgehog was attracted to her. She was lovely, sweet and beautiful. But he knew that someone like her was _never_ going to be with someone like him. They were too different. When he sees dark clouds, she sees rainbows, when he believes everything is going wrong, she's probably the one person who notices that tiny spark of hope in the middle of the room.

He was normally a confident person and a blunt person to be honest but he never thought that one girl could ruin his entire confidence. What was this feeling that she had over him and yet _didn't_ seem to care about it.

"Hello brother."

Shadow's eyes widened before he gritted his teeth only to see the sight of his step brother in front of him. He looked the same, sad person he had always been as Shadow was fighting the urge not to throw one of his vodka bottles in his face.

"We are _not_ nor will _never_ be brothers, and how the hell did you get in my office?" Shadow spat as Eclipse simply frowned.

"It's been six years since you last saw me and not even a greeting? Not even a _how are you?_ Rude isn't it?" Eclipse muttered as Shadow rolled his eyes. The last thing he needed was his 'brother's' stupid annoying wit.

"It's been a great six years without you and I would _love_ for that to increase." Shadow hissed as Eclipse began looking around his office.

"Wow, I can't believe my brother has his own industry. And you even helped out during the second world war. Isn't that great?"

"The hell do you want?" Shadow moved to the point as Eclipse dashed him a smile "To make amends."

Shadow scoffed as a reply. "Amends? You're the reason that Maria is _dead._ You're the reason that _my mother is dead_. You're the reason for everything _bad_ in my life! And you walk in here asking for amends? Get the hell out."

"First of all, Maria was breaking the _law-_ "

 **"** **MARIA WAS FAMILY!"** Shadow shouted, heavy panting coming out afterwards as Eclipse still had his calm face. Did he just _not_ care about anyone but himself?

"Family or not _,_ she was breaking the law. She was in love with _women_ , Shadow. Doesn't that repel you? She was a lady in love with _her own kind_? It's unnatural."

"You're unnatural. You're not even my family. You're just the product of when my father forgot protection when he was screwing the whore that you call your mother." Shadow muttered, loud enough for Eclipse to hear as silence went between the two. Shadow's words were cold and harsh; he knew but he knew that Eclipse had deserved it.

"Now, _get the hell out of my office._ " Shadow ordered as Eclipse sighed before beginning to walk out before adding.

"Your sectary is quite cute by the way. Cuter than Fiona, maybe you could set us up." Eclipse smirked before walking away from the fuming hedgehog as Shadow bit his lip before breaking one of his glasses of vodka.

"Are you okay?" Tikal asked as Shadow scoffed. "Of course not, not like you would care."

 _Shadow, stop. You're not angry at her. You're angry at yourself and you don't need to take it out on her._

"Sorry, I was told to print out a few documents of new products to build and when I came back, you seemed very angry." Tikal explained as Shadow barely nodded but was at least happy that he had at least know how Eclipse had gotten in. He watched as she glanced at the broken bottle of vodka as Tikal bit her lip before glancing at his foot quickly.

"I'm fine." he let out sharply than he intended. "Just need to be alone right now." he muttered as Tikal nodded in understanding before walking away but not without adding.

"I'm sorry about Maria."

Shadow glanced at her as she gave him a small smile. "I know what it's like for someone innocent to be taken away from you."

And with that she walked away, leaving Shadow in complete confusion.

 **~xxx~**

 **YAY GUYS I UPDATED! Sadly, I wouldn't update for a while due to the coming of my exams and all so updates would be super late. I might** ** _finally_** **update wanderlust today or I might delete it for another Knuxouge story not sure but either way, thank you for support for both! 3**

 **BTW, just to make things clear,** ** _I'M NOT HOMOPHOBIC Y'ALL!_** **It's just turning the times, people were** ** _very_** **homophobic and after watching Imitation Game, I felt like writing something like that. Y'all can love who you love, doesn't change you are! Just wanted to make that clear. :^)**

 **Anyway, part two would obviously have Rouge vs Julie and other characters that I forgot to put but I will also be adding Cream, Sally and Sonia [mainly because I want to add my Scourge x Sonia, they're my crack ship don't judge please]**

 **Anyway, hope you all enjoyed it and see you all next time 3**


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